Eight times a week, over a two-year period, he was consumed with unrequited
love for a chaste and beautiful woman. She, meanwhile, was the elusive
beloved, at once intrigued and frightened by her obsessed suitor-onstage,
that is. But last month, actors Kevin Gray and Dodie Pettit effectively
rewrote the ending to an 80-year-old story. “It just kind of happened,” said
the 35-year-old Connecticut-born actor. Before his current incarnation
as the Engineer in the hit Toronto stage musical Miss Saigon, Gray played
the lovesick title character in the North American touring production
of The Phantom of the Opera. New Jersey-born Pettit played the heroine,
Christine Daae. And while Phantom always ended the same way-sadly- things
went much more smoothly offstage for Gray and Pettit, who began dating
after meeting at rehearsals in New York City. So smoothly, in fact, that
on New Year’s Cay they traveled from Toronto, where they now live,
to Las Vegas, then bought a $35 license and hustled over to the Chapel
of the Bells, one of the city’s most famous 24-hour wedding factories. “We
just went off and got married,” said Gray. The wedding, as is usual
in the Chapel, was brief- just a few minutes. But, Gray added, “We
intend to have an endless honeymoon.” At long last, the Phantom
gets the girl.
*Dodie’s Note- I KNOW I told these people that I was the Understudy
to Christine….but media being as it is, some editor somewhere
printed what they wanted …guess it made better copy. So don’t
always believe what you read! PS the wedding part, however, was quite
right.