Once Upon a Time. . .

Once upon a time Jeremy and I were perusing the latest Doctor Who news online.  "The Ponds" had recently made their exit, and Amy Pond and Rory Williams would no longer be traveling companions of the Doctor. 

We watched some interviews of Arthur Darvill, the actor who played Rory, explain his next plans.  Apparently he was to be performing in the cast of a musical on Broadway through the end of the year. 

We found a video of him performing a popular song from the show and I realized it was a song I loved from my Pandora Radio "lullaby" station, but never knew what it was from.

So I called my mom (whom we had successfully converted to a "Whovian" Who-fan over the last year in particular) and proposed my plan: 

You kinda feel like things suck in your life and you have nothing good to look forward to right now, and I kinda feel like my life sucks right now and I have nothing good to look forward to. . .

Lets go on a trip!

Then we'll have something great and exciting to think about and to look forward to!

My mom's such a good sport. . . she was all in. Mom, of course, raised us on musical theater, both on screen and on stage.

And in fact it was going to mark the tenth anniversary of the trip my mom and I took to NYC Right before Jeremy and I got married, and coincided with my 21st birthday as well.  We decided to invite my sister along this time for good measure as well. 

We planned a fun trip and actually tried not to think too much about seeing Arthur Darvill.  The thing is, it could always be an understudy.  We tried to think about which night of our trip would be better to see the show?  Which night would he be least-likely to have an understudy?

There's no way to know.

So we decided we just needed to go and if we ended up seeing him it would just be a bonus.  So we didn't talk about it didn't dwell on it, and just went to NYC.

Baby Rory came along with me--my little nursling.  Through a long, twisted, and lot's of stressing (on my part) series of communication, we found a babysitter for when we would be at the show.  In the end she was a wonderful girl and I felt 100% blessed and confident and happy to leave Rory with her.

We took the subway and walked a few blocks to the theater.  

Out in front was a massive poster for the musical, and right there gigantic on the wall was Arthur Darvil.

And it was all over.

I could no longer pretend that I didn't really, really hope it was him performing!  But it was him performing that night. It was a great show--unique in the fact that the cast is it's own orchestra, and just about everybody is on stage at all times, they just sit off on the side when their characters are not up.  Mom had great seats for us, and we were totally spoiled.

Afterwards there were these cattleguards out along the side of the building, and my sister--whose been to NYC herself a few times--said that she was pretty sure that this was where the cast would come out afterwards, and they often sign autographs and things.

Should we stay?

We texted the babysitter, who said Rory was up and "looking for Mom."

Ohh, pressure, stress!

Cast members started coming out, but not Arthur.  Maybe he takes forever on purpose, maybe he doesn't really like all the fans out there waiting?

We should go. . . It's getting late.

Finally he came out!  And he was smiling and giving autographs, and posing for pictures with people--totally nice and not rushing through or anything.  I still was totally stressed about the baby though.  "Two more minutes baby, just hold on!"

Then it was our turn.  Arthur signed our Playbills, and thanked us for coming.  And we thanked him.

Then he looked at me and I said, "My six month-old Rory is home with a babysitter."

He got a totally awesome look on his face, and said, "Oh, that's wonderful.  That's just really wonderful!"

And he gave me a hug.

Best birthday present ever!

It was awesome.  The point is, I didn't say, "Oh Aurthur, I love you, I named my baby after you!" --I'm not a freaky fangirl.

I'm the level-headed fangirl that says, "We named our baby Rory, because we liked the name, and your portrayal of the character by that name is one of the big reasons why we had positive associations with that name, and chose it for our baby.  (My husband was in on the decision of course.)

As he continued down the line he passed my mom and complimented her earmuffs (notice them up in the first picture?) and she complimented him as being a fine entertainer. 

And that is the story of how once upon a time I went to the musical Once, staring Arthur Darvill, and scored the best birthday hug ever.