He graduated as a director and actor and spent the next several years acting, singing and dancing with the Oregon and San Diego Shakespeare Festivals, the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and with the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, CT. At Stratford, and subsequently at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, he became the associate artistic director to Michael Kahn.

Barry's Mary Rose – while also sharing directing duties with Wright for the subsequent iterations of Jack Heifner's Vanities.

[3] Returning to New York, Carpenter directed the Roundabout Theatre Company productions of The Doctor's Dilemma, Light Up The Sky and Privates on Parade[4]—this latter starring Jim Dale, Donna Murphy, and Simon Jones.

A second musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol played the Wilbur and Huntington theatres in Boston—starring Paul Benedict and then Clive Revill.

He also significant reworked Meredith Willson's Here's Love for Goodspeed Opera House; and Kiss Me, Kate for the Pioneer Theatre Company.

Carpenter's adaptation of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities played at both American Stage Festival and the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL.

Previously, he received the Bob Hope Scholarship for graduate study at Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts MFA Theatre program.

He received his BFA from Boston University School of Fine Arts, where he graduated cum laude as the Harold C. Case Scholar.