I must be too excited to sleep. Ha.
This is going to be way too long, so I apologize in advance.
My friend, her dad and I were waiting in the lobby to go into the main reception area that only the premium ticket holders were in at this point. All of a sudden my friend looks up, stops talking and is just standing there with her mouth open. I look up and sure enough Raul is walking out the reception doors into the area we were in, and then out the front doors. I was just staring at him with my mouth open the entire time. Then she and I walked out see where he was going and erm...admire him from a far I guess. The building is circle-shaped, and he seemed to walk about 20 feet away to the stage door to smoke and talk on the phone. My friends dad kept insisting I
go up to him when he was off the phone, which was not gonna happen. So I paced around (I'm pretty certain he was watching me do this) and resorted to my nervous habit of playing with my phone. A couple minutes later Raul was walking up to me, smiling, with my friends dad saying "She's a huge fan of yours" and stuff like that. I almost died.
Ok--just a brief moment of shallowness. He's
really attractive in person. I was swooning.
So I started walking towards him nervously smiling like an idiot. It was surreal. He said "Hi I'm Raul" (really? I had NO idea) and shook my hand. My friends dad and her then told him about how they went to Sardi's when they visited NY and got a picture by his caricature. He seemed to understand how big something like that is to Californians who never go to NY. Ha.
So then someone mentioned I brought some stuff for him to sign, to which he said "Oh cool" or something like that. I got out my copy of The Homecoming and the Company recording. He
asked me if I had read the play yet and when I said I had, he said "It's weird huh?". I said it got...interesting in the second act and he said something like "I read it thinking everyone's gonna hate me in this. I always seem to choose those roles." Then he signed the Company cd and said how much he loved doing that show and mentioned how it was recorded for Great Performances. I told him how excited I was that
that happened. I was literally shocked at how he seemed like he really wanted to be talking to us and sign my stuff. He was incredible, and way nicer than he had to be.
So he signed the play "To Katie, thank you so much" and wrote "and the best" on the cd. I think he then asked us if we were from here and we told him Sacramento. He said he was singing an Elvis Costello song and I thought about mentioning Brilliant Mistakes but didn't. I said I'd been wondering what he was going to sing (the theme of the show was "At the Movies") and he said something along the lines of not being
good at picking songs from old movie musicals, and that the Elvis Costello song happened to be in a movie. Then he shook our hands and said "Thanks so much Katie." I was suprised at how composed I was the whole time but now I wish I had thought of something approaching intelligent to say to him. He was so sweet the entire time and acted genuinely happy to be talking to us.
The performance--he sang God Give Me Strength, which I found midly amusing (the song choice, not the performance). It was amazing. We were pretty far back, but the theater was on the small side so it was a great view. He sang the hell out of that song. He didn't seem to get as into it with his facial expressions as he did at Brilliant Mistakes (well, the clips I've seen of it). It was so powerful, I literally almost cried. I really hope I'll get to see him perform in a show someday.
Sorry this is turning into a novel, but there's one more thing worth mentioning. The stage had a red carpet type thing set up going to the center. After the finale, Raul went up to Jai Rodriguez and they hugged and such. Then as all the performers were walking off the stage and everyone was leaving, they had what I can only describe as a Red Carpet Diva-off. They both kinda walked down it shimmying and swaying their hips. It was adorable.
"I feel god in this chili's..."
Updated On: 8/6/07 at 11:19 AM
