Dancing TV star Karr comes back home
“So You Think You Can Dance” star Jakob Karr, a Central Florida native, is home with his award-winning show about growing up and coming out.
Karr, who grew up in the southwest Orlando suburb of Windermere, was runner-up in season six of “So You Think You Can Dance,” the Fox-TV dance competition. That was back in 2009, when Karr was 19 years old.
Now 31, Karr is back in Central Florida to remount his smash-hit show “Ain’t Done Bad,” a sell-out at the 2021 Orlando Fringe Festival, where it was named the best show of the fest in the Critics’ Choice Awards.
“I was blown away,” Karr says of the response to “Ain’t Done Bad,” which runs at the Renaissance Theatre near Loch Haven Park through May 1.
With dance, “Ain’t Done Bad” tells the story of a young gay man who leaves behind small-town life and an unsupportive family to find his path in the big city. The show could have been autobiographical — Karr left Windermere for New York City — except for a crucial difference.
“I have a wonderful, supportive family,” Karr says.
Still, it wasn’t easy making his way as a teenager attending a Baptist high school.
He sometimes felt “fear, anger and sadness,” he recalls, but he “lucked out at school. I found the other ‘weirdos’ and we were thick as thieves.”
He credits two of those highschool “weirdos,” BFFs Joi Marchetti and Amanda Lyon, as co-creators of “Ain’t Done Bad” for helping him refine the show after he came up with the concept.
“I knew they would be able to clarify and help me steer the ship,” he says. “It’s very much from a small-town, religious, Windermere point of view.”
In addition to his friends, as a youth Karr also found a haven in dance.
“My whole family is incredibly athletic,” he says. “I dipped my toe in a handful of sports, and I wasn’t bad. But I didn’t connect with any of them.”
Mom came to the rescue. “She had the idea of putting me in a dance class,” Karr says. “So I credit her with finding my love.” The connection was instant. “I remember thinking after
my first class that it was easy, which I had never felt before,” he recalls. Then he laughs: “I’m sure I was delusional. There’s no way I was good.”
But he quickly became good — better than good — competing in out-of-town tournaments and performing at Orlando’s Civic Theatre (now Orlando Repertory Theatre).
And as soon as he could, he headed for the big city.
“I left at age 18 because I didn’t think there was a dance scene in Orlando,” he says. He was accepted to the dance program at Fordham University in New York City but left when he was chosen for “So You Think You Can Dance.” And he never looked back.
Karr landed a job with a dance company while still competing on the TV show. He toured with Cirque du Soleil shows and spent five years with New York’s Company XIV troupe, which combines circus arts, burlesque and dance. He performed throughout Europe, Australia and India, for the Oscars telecast and in the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular.
In 2017, when Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats” returned to Broadway, Karr was in the cast and performed the pivotal role of Mr. Mistoffelees numerous times. “So fun!” he exclaims.
It’s all a long way — and more than a decade later — from “So You Think You Can Dance,” but Karr remains grateful for the boost the reality show gave him.
“People came to see my show at Fringe because they knew me from TV,” he says. “So it has definitely helped my career.”
A friend suggested he apply to the 2021 Fringe as a creative outlet when the COVID-19 pandemic had shut down most live entertainment.
“I started an application, kind of freaked out and in an hour wrote the show,” he says. “I wanted to make sure there was a clear story, not just dance. It just poured out of me.”
He cast it with friends he previously had worked with: “They all jumped at the chance,” he says.
And although he had never faced family rejection for being gay, he knew plenty of people who had — “people kicked out of their homes, sent to conversion therapy,” he says. “That saddened me so deeply. I could have been in their shoes. I was lucky.”
The show is designed to illustrate that no one travels through life alone; the
“Ain’t Done Bad” protagonist, danced by Karr, has friends and a loving mother.
“There’s a lot of female power in the show,” Karr says. “My mother was my biggest champion. My two girlfriends were my right and left arms.”
He hopes “Ain’t Done Bad,” which is upbeat without being preachy, will help audience members find strength, especially in Florida’s current political climate. The recent Parental Rights In Education law, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by critics, has left many in the gay community demoralized and angry.
“I see the show as a beacon of hope” for the audience, he says. “They can leave feeling confident and standing up for what needs to be stood up for.” ‘AIN’T DONE BAD’ When: Through May 1 Where: Renaissance
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