Marina, Kerry and Kate meet John

My friends and I met John after a performance of 'The Dinner Party' in New York and we would like to add our little story to your web page.

As soon as my three best friends and I found out that John Ritter was appearing in 'The Dinner Party', we decided that our very expensive collge tuition ranked much much farther down on the priorities scale than the chance to see Mr. Ritter in person. Sign us up! We immediately ordered tickets and began counting the days until January 27th - we listened to the theme song from "Three's Company" one too many times, all the time hoping that, for his curtain call, John would ride out on a bicycle and then fall off it.

The play was wonderful, and reading our playbills made us even more excited. It turns out that John's daughter goes to Vassar College, which is only fifteen minutes away from our own college, Bard.

After the performance, we decided we would wait as long as it took for John to leave the theater. As soon as we walked out of the theater, Marina noticed a commotion outside the stage door and thought it might be John signing autographs. I laughed and said, "Yeah, right! The play ended five minutes ago!" She was pretty sure the hubbub had something to do with 'The Dinner Party' so we made our way into the crowd that was, in fact, surrounding JOHN RITTER!!! He signed all of our playbills and was more friendly than I ever could have imagined. He joked around with us - he was carrying a plastic bag, and he said "How do you like my briefcase? Very professional, eh?"

The weekend before the play, the four of us had gone to the Inauguration of President Bush in Washington DC and my friend Thom made a sign saying "John Ritter for President, come and knock on our White House door." I guess it was our own silent way of protesting, but I'm not sure anyone appreciated the joke. Anyway, he brought the sign to the play and asked John to autograph it. John looked at it, chuckled, and wrote "I demand a recount! - John Ritter." Thom thanked him and added, "You're a funny man!" We then asked someone to take a picture of the four of us with John (see above - from the left: Marina Santiago, Kerry Gibson, me, the man himself, and Thom Scott, who was cut out). After thanking him an obnoxious number of times, we watched him walk across the street and out of our lives... or so we thought! Unable to move, we stood outside the theater for a few minutes... Thom staring at his poster, Marina dry heaving, and Kerry and I hugging and jumping up and down. We were just coming out of a group hug, when Marina said, "He's coming back." I didn't believe her, but when I turned around he was walking back towards the theater. I looked at him and said something classy like "Oh, my God!" (of course now, we are all able to think of a million things we COULD have said). As he passed by, John looked at us and said "You guys are loitering!" We responded with nervous laughter and a few "yeahs". (Once again, the apex of classiness! Call Guiness! God forbid Marina and Kate and Kerry and Thom show a little class!) He then knocked on the stage door and a few moments later, walked in. This event was one of the highlights of our lives. Seriously, folks. We are obsessed. We are not at all ashamed to admit that we have had several John Ritter movie marathons. We love the man.

The End