Tale #10: My Fake Fiancé

I took a few weeks off from sharing stories in order to get settled into my new job in North Hollywood, focus on my course at UCLA Extension, and oh yeah, finally get married to the amazing Jeremy! After two years of being engaged, we were finally able to have a dream-wedding in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.

So for my first tale back, I thought it would only be fitting to acknowledge my other fiancé.

The Dvorak family (aka my mom Terry and myself) and the Nickels family (aka Dale the sound guy and Steve the lighting guy) had grown very close over our many years of working in theater.  We would often work late hours during shows, solve complicated logistical problems together, and develop unique and beautiful concepts for our shows combining the technical and directorial elements.

My mom directed our summer production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the summer of 2019. This was a heavy tech show as there was a flying car involved. The four of us worked tirelessly alongside the rest of the team to bring this whimsical (and albeit rather silly) tale to life on stage.

I was gone for three weeks during the rehearsal process traveling in Asia with my then-boyfriend Jeremy. We visited Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and Shanghai over the course of our journey.

On our second to last night in Singapore, Jeremy took me to the gorgeous Spago restaurant on the 57^th Floor of the Marina Bay Sands hotel. On the terrace overlooking the beautiful gardens of the bay, my then-boyfriend dropped to his knee and made me his fiancée.

Returning from a long trip engaged means everyone has questions. I told the story of Jeremy’s romantic moment time and time again to every adult and googly-eyed teenage girl who asked.

Fast forward to the opening night of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. My mom was giving her staff recognition speeches and it was time for her to recognize Steve and Dale. She gave a very heartwarming speech about how they had become family to us and how we were so grateful for everything they did to make the shows at VACT possible.

Now, there was a 13-year-old boy working tech for the show who I have known since he was a little kid. I had worked on numerous children’s theater shows with him, so we had a pretty good rapport. If there was one thing I knew about this kid, it was that he was always only half-listening.

After the thank you presentations, everyone resumed their typical pre-show routine. I was talking to another cast member in the hallway when this young man approached me and said, “hey, so you are marrying Steve? That’s awesome.”

I looked at him with confusion on my face and said, “what? My fiancé is Jeremy.”

He said, “Well my mom said you got engaged and your mom said you and Dale and Steve were becoming family.”

I shook my head and said, “No, no. My mom said we had become like family.”

Now, based on what he had comprehended from his mom and based on the little he had managed to hear correctly from my mom, it wasn’t a crazy conclusion for him to come to.

I told our team what this young man had said, and we all thought it was quite funny. We began joking that Steve was my fake fiancé. We used that joke so much to the point where if I asked Steve to help with something he would respond with “yes dear.”

I am quite the lucky girl. I have an amazing husband and an amazing fake fiancé.