My peeps

The Arlington Players (TAP), the producing company for The Man Who Came to Dinner, has a wonderful marketing tool. I don't know if they use it for every show, but they did for this one. They create a post card ad for the show and then do a mail merge for each cast member. Provide Dave the Marketing Guy with names and addresses and TAP will send them a post card for the show that shows your name and headshot.

So I gave them my Christmas card list.

Not the whole thing - Leslie and Naomi are in California, after all - but most of the local names. I'm not very good at telling people "I'm in a show, please come see it" because I used to know someone who started out treating me as a friend and over time just treated me as a potential audience member. I have friends, you know, not ticket holders.

But damn those post cards work. I've had a pretty decent cross section of folks come to see the show, including some who rarely see what I do. (We are fully scheduled people).

So last night John and Mattie came! And this is after I (urk) stood them up for the Redskins/Vikings game. (Not on purpose, I swear.) We haven't seen each other in forever, but they got the post card and said "Let's go!" Color me delighted. And now we have a dinner date for next week. I swear, I will be there.

And Julie & Deb J came with Ali & Pete and Joe & Denise. Julie, bless her, said "Well, you see everything we do, so we thought...." So she gets double friend points. Actually, the whole crowd gets whole handfuls of friend points because when folks who haven't been able to see much of what I've done (and therefore didn't know for sure that I'm one of the finest actresses of my generation) greet me in the lobby by literally jumping up and down and screaming like girls that I was great -- well. How can one not love that? Like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes right then.

And Debbie had a rehearsal last night, but it ended early enough that she came to the theater and saw most of the show. This woman had a rehearsal. She had plausable avoidability. But she came. I love that.

So.... those of you who live in the DC area who thinking "Darn! I missed her show!" (We close tonight, there's still time....) and are regretting not being about to jump and down in the lobby and scream like girls, well -- Independence opens April 1st. Y'all come.