(Cynthia Gibb with partner Lee - Photo Lee Curreri)
Later that day when we’d finally been able to contact our friends Derek and Diego and arranged to meet them in a bar called Engells, where we'd have a drink and then finally get some food or so I thought!
As we approached I could see they were standing near the entrance talking to a woman and a man who had their backs to us. As we got closer my excitement began to grow as even from the back I could tell it was Cynthia Gibb they were talking to.
We quickly went in and Cynthia hugged me and said “It’s Mark, right?” I was shocked but over the moon that she actually knew who I was. Because of this site and my Facebook pages She and I had shared the odd message on Facebook but I never expected that she would remember me.
I was instantly struck by how bubbly and friendly Cynthia is. She laughed and chattered about the casts time in Italy and how they'd stayed up late a couple of nights ago and had too much Limoncello! So was only drinking tea that night.
She really was so lovely and kind to us with her time. She introduced us to her partner Lee. She’d only got a short time before she was due at rehearsals. We said we wouldn’t intrude and we'd leave them in peace but Cynthia said it was fine.
Still we didn't want to push ourselves on them. Derek helped them carry their drinks over to a table and ended up chatting to Cynthia. She was obviously happy to meet people so after a few minutes I went over too and then Derek left me alone with Cynthia and Lee.
I asked if she could tell me what songs they would be singing in the show. She told me that actually the cast didn't really know what songs to sing as they weren't sure what the fans wanted to hear.
She said that they were singing "Starmaker" around the piano and that was sounding really good. I mentioned that I'd seen a clip of a rehearsal on Facebook, which I remember one of the cast had posted, which I thought was Cynthia. (It turned out to be Nia Peeples). Cynthia tried to show me some clips she had on her phone from rehearsals of the cast singing "Fame" however the sound was really distorted and all we could hear was a horrible static noise. Lee laughed at how terrible the video was.
Cynthia then said that she'd been asked to sing "Footloose", presumably by the organisers or the band as she'd performed it on Italian TV back in the late 80s on the Raffaella Carrà show. I mentioned I had that clip. (View Clip) So she'd agreed to do that.
She finished her tea and said that they had to go and then said "You're coming at 6.30pm aren't you?"
At first I was confused as I didn't know what she was talking about. She explained that the cast would be doing rehearsals at the Theatre from 6.30pm. She then said it wasn't her place to invite us but she didn't think anyone would mind.
We hugged goodbye and with that she was gone. I was left on a real high as I hadn't been expecting this encounter at all. I love all the cast but my big favourites are Debbie, Nia, Erica and Valerie but after meeting Cynthia she was now up there with them.
I rejoined the others and mentioned about the rehearsals. We weren't sure how we'd get in but we were going to try. We'd got half an hour, just time for another drink but sadly no time to go and eat. Thankfully the people in the bar kept putting little snacks in front of us so that was something, but who cared about food, that wasn't important, going to the rehearsals was!
Haha, with all the great food here in Italy (and no, I'm not biased), it's funny that you had to go on a diet!
ReplyDeleteGreat inside story as usual.