Did that just happen?
I just had one of the most surreal experiences of my life. It was the closing performance of the play I'm stage managing today, and so the cast and I were already super hyper and emotional. I was giving the call to everyone for 5 minutes to places when the writer/producer (who's amazing) stops me in the hallway backstage and says "I want you to meet my friend Ian." I'm super busy, so I distractedly hold my hand out to this guy to shake, look up, and it's Ian Somerhalder. SO CRAZY.
On the outside, I'm all "Oh, it's nice to meet you," like I have no clue who he is, and I continue running around getting everything ready for the show, but on the inside, I'm like, holy crap! Meanwhile, he and my producer hang out backstage, so he's there watching as I call places, hug all the actors, and negotiate with the house manager to make sure Ian and my producer's wife have seats in the audience, because we're totally sold out. At one point, we were about to set up seats for them in the booth with me, in which case I would have run the entire show with Ian Somerhalder chilling in a closet-sized space with me and my producer. Thank god that didn't happen, as I probably would have been a basket case.
But you can see the audience's faces from the booth, so I got to watch his reaction to the whole show, which was a riot. And after the cast embarrassed me horribly by bringing me and my producer up to the stage after bows to give us flowers (I'm a stage manager because I like being invisible!), Ian exited through the backstage, saw me, congratulated me on a show well done, and kissed my hand.
Like, what?! How does this even happen? I'm in my place of work, being professional, keeping everything running smoothly, closing a show that's been a joy to work on inside and out, enjoying every moment of the last performance and realizing how sad I'm about to be that it's over, and one of the stars of my favorite TV show is there to see a play I'm extremely proud to have been in charge of for the past six weeks. After living in LA for so many years, I'm pretty low key about seeing actors around town, and I'm mostly just overcome with post-closing emotions, but there's a little part of me that can't quite believe that just occurred.
On the outside, I'm all "Oh, it's nice to meet you," like I have no clue who he is, and I continue running around getting everything ready for the show, but on the inside, I'm like, holy crap! Meanwhile, he and my producer hang out backstage, so he's there watching as I call places, hug all the actors, and negotiate with the house manager to make sure Ian and my producer's wife have seats in the audience, because we're totally sold out. At one point, we were about to set up seats for them in the booth with me, in which case I would have run the entire show with Ian Somerhalder chilling in a closet-sized space with me and my producer. Thank god that didn't happen, as I probably would have been a basket case.
But you can see the audience's faces from the booth, so I got to watch his reaction to the whole show, which was a riot. And after the cast embarrassed me horribly by bringing me and my producer up to the stage after bows to give us flowers (I'm a stage manager because I like being invisible!), Ian exited through the backstage, saw me, congratulated me on a show well done, and kissed my hand.
Like, what?! How does this even happen? I'm in my place of work, being professional, keeping everything running smoothly, closing a show that's been a joy to work on inside and out, enjoying every moment of the last performance and realizing how sad I'm about to be that it's over, and one of the stars of my favorite TV show is there to see a play I'm extremely proud to have been in charge of for the past six weeks. After living in LA for so many years, I'm pretty low key about seeing actors around town, and I'm mostly just overcome with post-closing emotions, but there's a little part of me that can't quite believe that just occurred.