Quick Win: Broadway star Andy Karl reveals how he keeps his performances fresh night after night

Ever wondered how Broadway stars maintain their peak performance night after night? In this episode, Tony-nominated musical theatre star Andy Karl pulls back the curtain on his daily rituals and professional secrets that keep him at the top of his game.Andy shares his insider knowledge on:

• 🎭 The gruelling reality of performing 8 shows a week
• 🎤 His unique vocal warm-up routine featuring Sinatra, Cubis, and classic show tunes
• 🧘‍♂️ The power of yoga and weightlifting in maintaining stage presence
• 🔁 Techniques for keeping performances fresh during long-running shows
• 🧠 The psychological approach to embracing repetition in both life and art

Whether you're an aspiring performer, public speaker, or simply curious about the behind-the-scenes world of theatre, Andy's insights offer valuable lessons on consistency, dedication, and the pursuit of excellence in any field.

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Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber
Episode Producer: Rowena Murray

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever wondered how Broadway stars maintain peak performance
night after night, how they keep things fresh when they're
doing the exact same routine every single day. Broadway theater
star Andy Carl pulls back the curtains on what it's
really like to perform eight shows a week, and more importantly,

(00:21):
how he keeps his performances exciting for himself and his
audience for every single show. Welcome to How I Work,
a show about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day.
I'm your host, Doctor Amantha Imber. On today's Quick Win episode,

(00:43):
we go back to an interview from the past and
I pick out a quick win that you can apply today.
In today's show, I speak with Andy Carl about his
rituals and processes for maintaining peak performance for months on end.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I think you know, inherent in the nature of theater
and specifically musical theater, repetition is paramount.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
It's eight shows a week. It is a lot of grind.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
So you try to get into the repetition of how
you can judge how well you're going to be that day,
whether at eighty percent or one hundred and twenty percent.
As far as vocally physically. So there is the gym,
there is vocal warm ups, so I do a very
strict vocal warm up every day. But I also then
go sing three very different types of songs specifically for

(01:31):
this show because it is so varied in its vocal identity.
So I'll sing a little bit of Sinatra, and then
I'll sing a little Occubis, and then I'll sing a
regular old school tune called Wonderful from and it gets
your gun. So I just can utilize every inch of
my vocal range because this show does take a lot,
and I do that every day. I need being to

(01:54):
get through to give me some excitement. It really gets
my adrenaline going at the beginning, and it gets me.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
It gets me.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Excited to say the words and be active and know
how flexible I am for certain moves that I'll do
on stage because it's very physically active as well. For
any of your listeners who are speakers who have to
do lots of speeches, I'm sure you do a lot
of speaking. You realize the caffeine's great, but you got
to have a glass of water nearby, so.

Speaker 4 (02:19):
You're singing those three songs.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Are there any little vocal warm up hacks that like me,
immortals like may.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
To discover during one show in Jersey Boys, that if
I can warm my voice by going as deep as
I possibly can, because you know, the show is very high.
But if you extend the ranges of your voice and
really make sure that you know how deep you can go,
and then start building up and going as high, it
really gives the flexibility of your entire vocal cord. Your

(02:48):
vocal cords are a muscle, and they do need exercise,
and they do need to stay lubricated and loose as well,
So it's really important to extend the upper range and
the lower range.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
There any exercises that you do to improve the fitness
of your diaphragm and just breath work and he routines
around that, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Certainly, crunches, you do those.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
I find all my physical activity just inherently helps everything
about my voice, everything my posture, everything about my ability
to present myself well on stage. I think Phil Connor's
the role that I'm playing, changes posture due to the
circumstances that he's in. I certainly stand pretty stoic in

(03:33):
the beginning and then proud when I'm delivering a Weatherman speech,
and when he falls into the repetition.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Of each day that he is.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Now finding to be a nightmare, I start to hunt
over as Phil and sort of lose my ability to
stand up straight and be presentable and powerful. So do
those crunches lift those weights. I'm not saying you have
to be a bodybuilder. I find weightlifting to be very helpful,
and yoga I do free other day, So elasticity and

(04:03):
strength and power is where I come from.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Now, I feel like an obvious question to ask, given
you are in Groundhog Day, which involves repeating the same
thing the same day, many many times, how do you.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
Keep it fresh?

Speaker 1 (04:17):
I was at a Christmas party chatting to a performer
and he'd been doing The mouse Trap for the whole
of the year, and he said that every night is
a different show because it's a different audience and it's
a completely new experience.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
And really I love that answer because I.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
You know, the certain keynotes that I deliver as part
of my work, and sometimes before a keynote, I'm like, oh,
my goodes, this is the hundredth time I've delivered this,
and I have to somehow mentally reframe the situation, and
I'd love to know how do you get yourself into
the zone and make it exciting when it's like the
seven hundredth performance of Groundhog Day that you've done in

(04:55):
your career.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
It is a fresh audience.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Every note so or is an undying passion for an
audience to understand what I understand, which is how funny
things are and the sum up parts will eventually tell
this story, which I find so profound, which is why
I'm doing it so much. It's another level of repetition
to perform a show that is about repetition, and the

(05:20):
philosophy behind it is if you are stuck in the
same thing, doing it over and over again, what can
you find? Just by sheer storytelling, we end in a
place of finding presence and happiness in the moment, And
in order for me to get there, I have to
have the intention of the entire story or I'm not
going to end in the place that is what the

(05:41):
story is really about.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Ah Andy, I'm so glad we could make this interview happen.
As I moved through my life, I'm always just trying
to take note of the people that I'm super impressed
by or that move me in some way, and when
I saw you perform in Groundhole Day few weeks ago,
I just thought I need to interview him. I want

(06:03):
to hear more about his story. And for anyone that
is listening at the right time and is in Melbourne
or can get to Melbourne, you just you have to
see Groundhog Day. It's one of the best musicals I've
ever seen. I'll be back again in the audience in a.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
Few weeks time.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Andy, thank you so much for sharing your fascinating strategies
and amazing stories with me here today.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
I appreciate Amantha, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
It comes to you the show and you'll see somebody
who's actually a little bit Groundhog Dan side of Groundhog Dan,
and I'm having fun with it.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
I hope you enjoyed today's quick Win episode. If you
would like to hear the full chat with Andy, you
can find a link to that in the show notes.
If you're looking for more tips to improve the way
you work can live. I write a short weekly newsletter
that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally.
You can sign up for that at Amantha dot com.

(06:54):
That's Amantha dot com. If you like today's show, make
sure you hit full on your podcast app to be
alerted when new episodes drop. How I Work was recorded
on the traditional land of the Warrangery people, part of
the Kulan Nation. A big thank you to my editor
Rowena Murray and Martinimma for doing the sound mix.