Who Knows Me?

On tour, I handle all of our media and PR requests. I also sell the merchandise every night during the show.

To backtrack- there are fans of this show who will drive hours, fly across the country, fly across the WORLD, to come see it. The star of our shows name is Ted, so these people have been deemed "Ted Heads". Ted is known for staying after the shows to talk to fans and meet with people. However, as time goes on, he does this less and less. Where as last year he did it about 95% of the time, I would say this year we're looking at about 65% of the time.

Here is the strange part, for me: on a weekly basis, total strangers come up to me in the lobby while I am working and say "you must be Shannon!" or, "are you Shannon?" My first thought is, do I know you? Then I quickly remember that these Ted Heads have taken the liberty of writing about me on their websites (sometimes nice, sometimes not- I have not read them, but others have). I am the only face on the tour they see- the actors are on stage, and everyone else works behind the scenes. So everyone who reads these fan sites knows my name, who I am, and what I do! It's just weird.

I think the reason these people do this is to try to use me to get to Ted after the show. They know that I often stick around with him, just to make sure things are in order. Because Ted plays the character of Jesus, people seem to really take to him much more than someone who plays, lets say, the Wizard in Wicked. There is one woman who I call the "Ted Petter". She literally pets his hair when she talks to him. Others bring him bags of gifts, family photo albums, one guy made him an award like an Oscar for playing Jesus...

I don't mind nice people who really enjoy the show, and loved Ted's performance. These people bring their albums from the 70's for him to sign, tell their stories about growing up with the music- it's pretty cool. I DO mind the people that feel they have a right to see him after the show just because they bought a ticket, and take advantage of his time. That is a whole other blog that I will not write, since you never know who reads these things!

My point is- I don't think you should write about people on the internet you do not know. Especially telling people to say hello to them to try and get something out of them. It's fine to read about people you do not know who have written about themselves, like this blog.

The question after they introduce themselves is: "where will Ted be doing a meet and greet tonight"? If he's not doing one, they don't believe me anyway and they wait around after we have already left, so what is the point in asking!?