Danielle S’s Story

My fiance’ and I are both involved in community theatre.  At the time of our engagement, we were in the middle of a production of Victor Victoria.  It was June 21, 2009, the final show after a three-week run.  We had a scene together in the middle of Act 2 where there was a fellow performer singing a song called Paris By Night and we were playing the roles of a couple in love strolling along the streets of Paris on a romantic evening.

After four weeks of rehearsals and a three week long show, we had done this particular scene a multitude of times, as you can imagine.  This final night, however, as we were “strolling along the streets of Paris” and were about to exit the stage, my fiancé, Tommy, pulled me back into the middle of the stage, took me by the hand and got down on one knee.  I literally looked at him with mass confusion in my eyes and whispered “what are you doing, we’re supposed to EXIT!”.  I could not understand why he was messing up on the final show when we had done the scene so many times before!

So here we were, in the middle of the stage, in the MIDDLE of an ongoing show, in front of a paying of audience in excess of THREE HUNDRED people, and he pulls out a diamond ring as says “Will you marry me”.  I was in such shock!!!!  I didn’t know what to do.  I sat there in front of all these people and wondered, am I supposed to stay in character, can I yell, can I be “myself”…. no i can’t be myself, I’m playing a role… but I just got ENGAGED… in the middle of a show…. on stage…. in front of a massive audience!!!!!  Of course I said “YES!” and then we quickly exited off stage where I was greeted by my fellow cast members who were watching the whole proposal from the green room where there is a live video stream of the show.  Everyone was so excited for me!

What made it even better was that this particular night was the night that we had crew there taping the show… so I have a permanent record of our engagement!  The funny thing, however, was after the show several people came up to me and asked whether or not that was “for real”… it seems many people actually believed the whole thing was scripted!  I guess that means I did a pretty good job and staying in character…. or at least that I played a very convincing young girl in love…. because I really was… and still am!!!