Least Expected.

Today's Marketing Cookie sparks the beginning of a love story that blossomed on the stage of what I thought would be a big break for my professional acting career.

It was the closing performance of the musical "Godspell" in Nyack, NY. The house was sold out, the band rocked harder than ever, we sang at the top of our lungs, and we had really knocked 'em dead! After the final curtain call, I walked onto the lower stage to meet some of the fans, autograph playbills, and thank the audience for coming. At the back of the line was a director who asked if I would consider playing the lead in a musical written by William Gibson. Wow! William Gibson, the Tony-winning playwright of "The Miracle Worker"?

I accepted without hesitation.

It was a quirky play called "The Butterfingers Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the Nut and the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree" and a cute parody of the nativity story. Mary's a brat and doesn't want any kids, Joseph doesn't want to get married, King Herod is a power-mad whack job, and the Angel is all thumbs and can't play the trumpet.

My role was to be the Angel.

As the lead, I had weeks of rehearsal with Mary, then with Joseph, and then finally with King Herod. In real life, Mary was an artsy shopkeeper who sold new-age books, candles, and incense, and practiced meditation between rehearsal sessions. In his heyday, the man who played Joseph was a talented Broadway actor but was now mostly drinking whiskey and falling asleep during rehearsal. King Herod in real life was a professional wrestler for the WWE and smoked "special cigarettes" behind the theater between rehearsal calls.

I wasn't too sure how all of this would turn out.

With less than 30 days before the opening of the show, the rehearsal schedule opened up to include most of the other characters, including the farm animals who were the glue of the play because they had all the jokes, provided the comic relief, and basically served as the subtitles for the play.

The problem was that the animals were wearing large foam animal masks, which muffled their voices and made it extremely difficult for them to see where they were walking. So, the director asked the animals to hold onto each other when walking and to speak a little louder when delivering their lines.

As a result, the farm animals were constantly clustered together, stepping on each other's feet, and continuously all falling down in unison throughout the duration of the play. Whenever they fell, the cow would take her cow-head mask off to stand up again. Whenever it came time for them to say their jokes, they would shout the punch lines at the top of their lungs, which were so muffled by their masks that no one could understand what they were saying.

Although the jokes were lost, and the producer was temporarily hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, the show must go on!

Finally, we began having full rehearsals with the entire cast and chorus... including the Cherry Tree.

Among the mayhem of a meditating Mary, a drunk Joseph, and screaming farm animals, I was entranced with the Cherry Tree. It was nearing dinner time, and I gathered all the courage I could muster to ask the Cherry Tree if she would like to share a fluffer-nutter sandwich with me. 

If you aren't familiar with fluffer-nutter sandwiches, it's basically a Peanut Butter and marshmallow Fluff sandwich.

Anyway, she said, "yes."

We went outside to eat our fluffer-nutters just as King Herod scooted behind the bushes to finish his "special cigarette." We walked awhile and started to talk. I was mesmerized. As we finished off the last of our sandwiches, we looked into the sky and saw a shooting star.

While "The Butterfingers Angel" would be an absolute theatrical disaster and I never did find a successful acting career, I did share a fluff-a-nutter with my future bride. We were married exactly one year later and I for one, know that today's fortune is true: A passionate new romance appears in your life when you truly least expect it.