A Love Story

“Tori and Dallas were meant to be.” A lot of our friends called it before we did. We first met in 2007 where we both attended VCU as performing arts majors. Dallas was a year ahead of Tori. Tori first saw Dallas sitting in the box office of Hodges Theater taking photos of an Iron Man action figure (which he still has to this day). She thought he was really cute. Dallas first saw Tori in the local Starbucks waiting in line at 7am, jumping around with an Elmo backpack on, pigtails in her hair, and a Dora the Explorer backpack. He thought she was really loud. We became friends bonding over our passion for physical theater. We remember sitting in the campus library (when we should have been studying) watching videos of various physical theater companies from around the world. That is where Dallas introduced Tori to Synetic Theater. At that time in history, the coolest event every other Friday night was the No Shame Variety Show. Dallas played a lead role in one of the reoccurring main acts. Mr. Grey, a charismatic and skilled fighter. Right before Dallas graduated he passed the torch on to Tori, thus dubbing the character as Miss. Grey…foreshadow? Just sayin’. Dallas graduated in 2010 and was accepted in the Synetic Company. Tori would make the trip up to see his shows and every time Dallas encouraged her to audition. Tori graduated in 2011, auditioned, and joined Dallas at Synetic, a place they have called home ever since for more reasons than one.

Since our days at VCU, we’ve gone on snowboarding trips, ordered a TON of sushi, went on a date to Le Diplomate, stayed in a luxury cabin, traveled to the Outer Banks, spent a 4th of July in Boston, sat around many a bonfire, ate dinner at Momo Fuku, hiked in Shenandoah, saw Bon Iver, City & Colour, Brandon Boyd, War on Drugs, and The Gorillaz in concert, performed together in too many shows to count, taught summer camps, took a weekend trip to VA Beach, attended a few Helen Hayes Award Ceremonies together, went to some gorgeous weddings, seriously thought about adopting a piglet, went to the Firefly Music Festival, watched the ball drop on NYE over and over again, made so many fantastic friends, fell deeply in love and got engaged on February 13th 2017.