Chantelle and I are about to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary in New York City in February. We were married at the top of the Empire State Building in 2004. A year before that, however, we met in an MCT production of Children of Eden, when we were cast as two halves of a 16-foot-tall, pantomime giraffe that loped across the stage surrounded by elephants and other animals from Noah’s ark.
Although we started off as strangers, we did many shows together at MCT after that, and the changing status of our relationship over time can be traced by our signatures on the official show posters that hang around the theatre to this day. Our names appear closer and closer to each other’s until the 2010 production of Peter Pan when Chantelle was pregnant with our son, “Sock.” On that poster, just below our names, there is a little drawing of a striped stocking. He likes to call that his stage debut. Since then, there are at least two posters with all three of our names on them.
MCT has always been a part of our relationship. We fell in love with MCT, and we fell in love at MCT. It is a “happy place” for us. A place where we are happy and a place that reminds us to be happy on days when we are not. Like any long-term relationship, we have our ups and downs, but being involved with MCT has always been an uplifting experience.
From volunteering with community theatre productions (both on and behind the stage), to helping with fundraisers, to marching in parades, to serving on the board of directors, the experiences we have had and the lifelong friends we have made, makes MCT an inextricable part of our family’s long-term community. That is one of the reasons we continue to donate our time and money to MCT as Spotlight Society members. We want to partially pay MCT back for all it has given to us and we want to make sure MCT continues to be there to do the same for so many other people in Missoula and around the world.
