photo above: Bill Wadman
photo: Deborah Lopez
Kyra Miller is an actress, writer, and singer. Her work in the theater has included musicals, opera, experimental puppeteering, devised theater, movement pieces, classical theater and storytelling.
Most recently, Kyra was a fellow at the Object Movement Festival (OMF) at the Center for West Park (funded by the Jim Henson Foundation), where she workshopped her play-with-puppets BlueBeardGasLight for the 2019-2020 cohort. BBGL was originally commissioned by The Muse Project (artistic director Jocelyn Kuritsky), and she has performed various stages of it at the Flea Theater and at Westbeth as part of the So-Fi Festival. Disrupted by the pandemic, the live OMF showing of BlueBeardGasLight was canceled, and it became a short film in 2021, remade the following year. Its current iteration can be seen here.
She currently lives in Vermont with her family.
Regionally, roles include Rebecca in Rags at Theaterworks Silicon Valley (directed by Robert Kelley, 2017; San Francisco/Bay Area Critics Circle nomination for Best Actress in a Musical). She was recently featured in an article in American Theatre about being a parent in real life while working in the American regional theater.
Other professional acting credits: Tina Landau’s production of The Time of Your Life at Seattle Rep and A.C.T. in San Francisco (co-production with Steppenwolf), The Light in the Piazza at the Philadelphia Theater Company with Joe Calarco (Barrymore nomination for best ensemble), A Chorus Line at the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle, Biography off-Broadway at the Pearl Theater in NYC, and The Man of La Mancha (New Orleans, Big Easy Award for best actress in a musical); as well as roles at the Westport Country Playhouse, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and Portland Stage Company.
Kyra made her Joe’s Pub debut with her piece Chosen (a solo work about Russian depilatory workers, retirement and baseball), with Matt Ray on piano. New York Magazine called her "...a Philip Roth short story come to life (if Philip Roth were a stunning woman)." She has also performed her stories at the Cornelia St. Café, the Irondale Center, and the Metropolitan Room, and with Women of Letters at the Bell House. Her last piece, concentrating solely on the music of Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel and their daddy issues, debuted at Pangea in NYC in November 2016, directed by Barb Jungr.
In New York, she has appeared at HERE in works directed by Hélène Lesterlin and Meiyin Wang, and at Dixon Place, in devised work by Stephan Koplowitz at Dance Theater Workshop and Grand Central Station (with Alexandra Beller), the Bushwick Starr and 100 Grand. She is a founding member of the neo-vaudeville collective The Fabulists, with actor-writers Mary Jane Gibson and Trish Nelson, and a former company member of The Woodshed Collective, with whom she was part of the creative team workshopping the immersive piece Aggressive, Depressing, Party & Mom. She also contributed writing to Fornicated from the Beatles (Oberon/A.R.T. – Emerging America; Public Assembly, NYC, directed by Mikhael Garver).
She has taught acting and the Alexander technique at Middlebury College, Tulane University, the American Academy of Dramatic Art, Montclair State University and the University of Washington. Currently, she is on the voice faculty in the music department at the University of Vermont.
Kyra also narrates audiobooks. (Peek here, here, here and here for samples.)
MFA, University of Washington PATP. Member: AEA. Kyra is also a member of NAAT, the National Alliance of Acting Teachers.
MORE SINGING:
OPERA: “I Want Magic,” from “A Streetcar Named Desire,” André Previn. With Matt Lobaugh on piano, Scorca Hall.
MUS THTR: “Almost Real,” from “The Bridges of Madison County,” Jason Robert Brown. Matt Lobaugh on piano, Scorca Hall.
POP/CAB: from “The Bruce & Billy Show,” “Brilliant Disguise,” Bruce Springsteen. Matt Ray on piano. Karl Kemp Performance Space.
ART SONG: Tiny excerpt of Knoxville: Summer 1915 (Samuel Barber). Berlin.