Our Brush (Off) With Celebrity

We were backstage before the second show when all of the sudden we heard a tremendous swell of applause. Instinctively, we all knew the moment we were waiting for had arrived: The Celebrity had come to see our show. Later reports indicated that she had been sitting down for while before people began noticing her. A few people pointed her out, and then some started taking her picture, and then it snowballed until the entire theater was abuzz with flashes going off and everyone turned in their seat to look at her. She appeased them by standing up, waving, and taking a little bow, and that’s when the place when nuts. We all looked at each other and knew without saying that this was going to be the best show ever.

The cruise director was backstage, so we quickly decided we would do a meet and greet after the show, which we figured was our best chance to meet her and take our picture with her. A meet and greet, for those of you who don’t do them in your own jobs, is when we stand outside of the theater after the show and say hi to the audience members as they leave. They can be often awkward, but we felt it was a small price to pay for the chance to take a picture with the woman who had now become our Favorite Actress Ever. I spent the rest of the time before the show racking my brain for ways to insert some of my choice “Angie” references into the scenes.

The show ended, and we composed ourselves and made our way to the front of the theater. I was the only one who had the foresight to bring my camera, so I was already mentally composing the witty email I would write when I sent the picture of me hugging the Celebrity to everybody in my address book. The crowd started trickling out, and we said hello to people, feigning friendliness but all the time scanning the distance for any glimpse of her and her entourage. I was talking to a family from New Jersey when IT happened, so I’ll have to rely on other people’s accounts about what exactly transpired. The celebrity walked out and (there is debate over whether or not she actually saw us standing there) made a right to enter an elevator, completely bypassing us. This left us having to put on a brave face for the next fifteen minutes, smiling and taking pictures, all the while realizing that our chance to mingle with greatness had just disappeared.

Our disappointment soon turned to white hot anger as we debated what had gone wrong later at the bar. Who did she think she was just to ignore us, we argued? Did she hate the show? Well, we never liked her show that much, either. I tried to think that maybe she hadn’t heard the announcement that we were going to be outside, or that she hadn’t seen us, or that she didn’t want to be besieged by fans and planned on sending us a nice card later on. But the sad fact was that we had been snubbed.

I saw her tonight at the buffet eating dinner with a small group of people. I am not too proud to admit that I lingered at the drink station filling my water glass, hoping that someone in her party would notice me and call me over and maybe invite me for a game of Bridge later on in their cabin, but alas, I filled my glass undisturbed. We have two days left, but I think we all know that our parties will remain unintroduced.