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Kicking It Real: Daily Summaries Delivered
by GABBY ROBERTS
I'm Gabby, a former Rockette who heard "no" five times before I ever heard "yes." Kicking It Real started as real conversations with dancers, and somewhere along the way it turned into something bigger: a space for anyone chasing a big, scary dream to actually get celebrated for it. Every guest leaves with something most people never get: a real moment of being seen, no follow-up question, just a chance to take a bow.This is where the highlight reel ends and the honest, in-progress stuff begins. Come for the stories, stay for the "same, me too" moments 🤍
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- Yesterday1h 6m
57. how to stop looking desperate in auditions: Radio City cuts, survival jobs and making friends with your nerves with Spencer Glass
Actor and audition coach Spencer Glass is the founder of Spencer Glass Coaching, a professor, and a BroadwayWorld columnist who helps actors treat their careers like a business. Before he had a three-month waitlist, he was a musical theatre kid from Long Island who made it to five Radio City Christmas Spectacular singer calls and got cut every single time.In this episode of Kicking It Real, a former Rockette and Spencer trade Radio City audition stories, from learning a song and choreography in minutes to starting in the wrong key in front of the team. He talks about growing up dyslexic as the only boy in dance class, how a BFA in musical theatre can shrink you, and the survival jobs he got fired from. Then the pandemic: he left show business, got his master's in education, taught middle school, and bet on himself to go full time with his coaching business.We also get into audition tips every actor and dancer can use: making friends with your nerves, how to stop bringing desperate energy into the audition room, the line between confident and cocky, why your career is a relationship game, and whose class to take if you want to work with a choreographer. Plus what it's like to come back to auditioning as an actor and a coach at the same time.If you're an actor, a dancer, or anyone who heard a no this week and wondered whether to keep going, this one is for you.Work with Spencer: spencerglass.comStay in the loop with me 🤍Instagram & TikTok: @kickingitrealpod @potentiallygabbyFind Spencer here 👇🏼Instagram: @hispencerglassTikTok: @spencer.glassCoaching: spencerglass.com
- 1 weeks ago1h 13m
56. Radio City Rockette to E! red carpet host: the audition she knew was personal, getting ghosted by Radio City, and The F*ck Them Theory with Keltie Knight
Former Radio City Rockette Keltie Knight is a three-time Emmy winner, a red carpet host for E! News, and the co-founder of the LadyGang podcast. Before the red carpet, she was a dancer who got cut from the Rockettes, auditioned for her own job, and danced for the New York Knicks, the Nets, and Beyoncé.In this episode of Kicking It Real, two former Rockettes talk about what a dance career really looks like behind the kicks. Keltie shares the husband who watched her rehearse Twelve Days and said “it doesn’t look that hard,” missing the 60% list twice, and the audition where she knew it was personal. She opens up about why dancing for Beyoncé still didn’t pay her rent, how she went from professional dancer to TV host, and getting fired from Entertainment Tonight before landing at E!.We also get into her new book, The F*ck Them Theory, and why she disagrees with The Let Them Theory. She talks about turning rejection into fuel, the Radio City weight letters dancers used to get, ADHD, and her black swan brain. Plus the Rockette exit nobody talks about, what she’d change about how Radio City says goodbye, and the time Sally Field scolded her on the Emmys red carpet.If you’re a dancer, a former dancer, or anyone figuring out what comes after the thing you loved most, this one is for you.The F*ck Them Theory is out 11/24. Tour tickets at fthembook.comStay in the loop with me 🤍Instagram & TikTok: @kickingitrealpod @potentiallygabbyFind Keltie here 👇🏼Instagram: @keltieBook + tour: fthembook.com
- 2 weeks ago1h 4m
55. 10 years a Rockette: how a torn ankle ended ballet and started Radio City, and who you are after the line with Alyssa Lemons
Alyssa Lemons was a Radio City Rockette for ten years, and she was never once on the list. Every single year, she auditioned for her own job. Then one summer, she didn't get it back.Two former Rockettes, one conversation. We start with the ballet scholarship that ended before her freshman year began, with two partially torn tendons and a ligament in her ankle, and the Radio City touring show she saw that Christmas while still in a boot. From there it's an absolute beginner tap class, the Rockette Summer Intensive invitational week, a Rockette Assistant contract she signed on the spot, and a boot camp with only five new girls.Then we get into the reality of the job: compartmentalizing through four show days, why the day after is the worst one, saying thank you for every note, and how she turned "they keep hiring me back" into her audition mantra. She opens up about the summer she didn't get the job, trying three therapists, writing letters to herself before the first rehearsal posts went up, and the 5:30 a.m. class where she finally felt relief. Plus how Pilates and a Lululemon ambassadorship gave her a new community, why rookie Rockettes should learn three full push-ups, and what she'd tell herself about owning the title.If you've ever been scared that you're "just a dancer," this one is for you.Stay in the loop with me 🤍Instagram & TikTok: @kickingitrealpod @potentiallygabbyFind Alyssa here 👇🏼Instagram: @alyssa.lemons.nyc (weekly NYC class schedule, DM for privates)
- 3 weeks ago1h 0m
54. from Rockette to Broadway to TV host: getting cut twice, Dancing With the Stars and why it's never a pivot with Amanda Kloots
Amanda Kloots got cut from the Rockettes twice before she booked it. What came after: 16 years of performing, Broadway, a fitness brand, Dancing with the Stars, five seasons co-hosting The Talk, and now her own podcast. And she says none of it was a pivot.Two former Rockettes, one conversation. We get into what changed between her second and third Rockette audition, surviving the five show day era, and why she left the line for Broadway because she wanted her own character instead of being one of 36. She shares the AK! Rope classes nobody came to for eight months, the Cats cut that made her go all in on her business, and why she calls every career move an enhancement.Then we go behind the scenes of Dancing with the Stars: why every week is like learning a brand new sport, the advice she gave her friend Jenna Dewan before this season, and why she feels like a better dancer now than ever. Plus what the Rockettes taught her about hosting live TV, how she preps for interviews, why she waited three years to start her grief podcast, whether she'd come back to Broadway as Roxie, and what she'd tell 18 year old Amanda walking into her first audition.If you've ever stepped away from dance and wondered if you're still a dancer, this one is for you.Stay in the loop with me 🤍Instagram & TikTok: @kickingitrealpod @potentiallygabbyFind Amanda here 👇🏼Instagram: @amandakloots Podcast: Good GriefProper Health: properhealth.com
- 4 weeks ago1h 8m
53. reinventing your dance career: cruise ships to Broadway to professor, why burnout is really boredom & how to choose a dance college with Lindsey Hanson
Lindsey Hanson has performed on Broadway, on the Radio City stage, on Sesame Street, and on cruise ships doing trapeze. And every time she got to the top of one corner of the dance world, she started over in a new one, on purpose.She danced with a contemporary jazz company through the Joffrey Ballet School, then cruise ships, then musical theater, then TV and film, and then played the White Queen in Third Rail Projects' Then She Fell. While she was still on tour, she earned her MFA from Montclair State. Today she's a newly tenured dance professor at Hope College, her alma mater, and she's wrapping up a year of four site-specific works made in worship spaces, funded by a $250,000 grant from Creative Arts Collective: Holland, a bird's-eye dance film, 22 dancers in New York, and a fourth in Grand Rapids.We get into the night she learned a duet, lifts and all, 30 minutes before curtain on a ship, what it's like to find your mark at Radio City when the show is a magic act, the thesis premiere COVID cancelled that went on to 13 film festivals, and the three words that got her through grad school: action cures fear. She also pulls back the curtain on how grants actually work and why burnout might really be boredom.Then we go deep on choosing a dance college. BFA vs BA vs conservatory, what to ask on a campus visit, why your professors are your first network, and why "the industry" is so much bigger than you think.If you're auditioning for college this fall, or you're scared to start over at something new, this one is for you.Stay in the loop with me 🤍Instagram & TikTok: @kickingitrealpod @potentiallygabbyFind Lindsey here 👇🏼Instagram: @lindseyhandsoncollective Website: lindseyhansoncollective.com
- Sep 30, 20261h 14m
52. why Broadway vets can't get auditions right now: celebrity casting, rejection, and starting a side business with Mary Page Nance
Mary Page Nance is living proof of something every artist finds out eventually: talent can get you into the room, but your willingness to stay uncomfortable decides what you do once you're in it.She trained in modern dance at SUNY Purchase, made her Broadway debut in the original company of Finding Neverland, swung twenty tracks in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, and went on to the original companies of A Beautiful Noise and Lempicka. She also runs Monocle Productions, her custom event entertainment company, and a page of mary, her handmade paper goods business. And somewhere in the middle of all that, while she was already working on Broadway, she went back to acting school.We get into why the open calls she spent years showing up to were never real auditions, the email that got her into an Andy Blankenbuehler master class for free, and the first audition where the room was actually expecting her. We talk about what it feels like to go on for a role on a Broadway stage while quietly guessing, and why she went home early on opening night to make a 9:30 a.m. acting class in Brooklyn.If you've heard no so many times lately that you've started to wonder whether you're the problem, this one is for you.Stay in the loop with me 🤍Instagram & TikTok: @kickingitrealpod @potentiallygabbyFind Mary Page here 👇🏼Instagram: @marypagenanceTikTok: @marypagenanceMonocle Productions: @monoclenyca page of mary: @apageofmaryHer Wicked and Lempicka card designs are at The Drama Book Shop in NYC.Sarah Kleist's business course for multi-hyphenate artists: sarahkleist.com
- Sep 23, 202659 min
51. from Chicago Bulls dance captain to Squid Game contestant with Julia Pontarelli
Julia Pontarelli packed her car, said goodbye to the only city she had ever called home, and moved to Seattle with two weeks to spare between the end of one dance career and the start of another. Losing the thing your whole life was built around rarely comes with a ceremony, most of the time it just quietly asks you who you are now that it is gone.Julia spent five years dancing for the Chicago Bulls, working her way up to head captain, before that move to Seattle put her on an NFL dance team for what turned out to be a single season, ending when she was cut the following year. She eventually opened her own dance studio in Seattle, and somewhere in the middle of all of it she also became Player 029 on Squid Game: The Challenge, walking straight into a show built entirely around elimination.We get into what actually happens in the two weeks between packing up a five year career and starting a brand new one three thousand miles away.We talk about the post that never happened, the one everyone was waiting for that said she made the team again, and what it cost her to be happy for the friends who did. We also get into why she signed up for a literal elimination show months after living through one, and which kind of getting cut actually hurt more.Gabby and Julia have known each other since fourth grade, back when they were both dancing in the same production of the Nutcracker, and this one is for anyone who has ever had something taken from them before they were ready to let it go.Stay in the loop with me 🤍Instagram & TikTok: @kickingitrealpod @potentiallygabbyFind Julia here 👇🏼Instagram & TikTok: @juliaponty
- Sep 16, 202656 min
50. Rockette secret retirement to future therapist with Natalie Butt
Natalie is back on Kicking It Real, and this conversation is proof that you're allowed to walk away from the thing you built your whole identity around and come out the other side more yourself, not less.She spent multiple seasons dancing with the Radio City Rockettes, performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and at a Madison Square Garden halftime show, and this past season quietly juggled full Rockette rehearsals with her first year of an online graduate program, all while telling almost no one it would be her last season on the line.We get into what it actually felt like to keep her retirement a secret from her castmates and friends, why burnout ended up being the thing that opened the door to a completely different career, and the moment in a job interview that stopped her in her tracks: "how'd you go from being a Rockette to here?"We talk about the sunk cost fallacy, what it's like to trade being the most impressive person in the room for a total identity reset, and the exact reframe that made the pressure of becoming someone's therapist feel possible instead of terrifying.This one is for anyone quietly wondering if they're allowed to want something new after giving everything to the thing they thought was forever.Stay in the loop with me 🤍Instagram & TikTok: @kickingitrealpod @potentiallygabbyFind Natalie here 👇🏼Instagram & TikTok: @nataliekbutt
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About Kicking It Real
I'm Gabby, a former Rockette who heard "no" five times before I ever heard "yes." Kicking It Real started as real conversations with dancers, and somewhere along the way it turned into something bigger: a space for anyone chasing a big, scary dream to actually get celebrated for it. Every guest leaves with something most people never get: a real moment of being seen, no follow-up question, just a chance to take a bow.This is where the highlight reel ends and the honest, in-progress stuff begins. Come for the stories, stay for the "same, me too" moments 🤍
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