When I tell people I work at Ravinia Festival, their reply is almost always either Can you get me Carrie Underwood tickets? or, I bet you have a lot of stories about what goes on backstage. For the former, the answer is always impossibly 'no'. For the latter...

Some rockers go hang out backstage with friends or family, some go to their trailers and get some much needed rest, but on Monday night during the Pat Benatar set, Brett Anderson, lead singer of The Donnas, stepped out into the park sans bodyguard or security, and chatted casually with fans (for quite a long time). I think the totally unplanned moment gave our security a bit of a shock as I saw them peek through the artist gate to check on things. But the best part of this spontaneous interaction came when she obliged to take a picture with me... 

Lesson learned from this chance encounter: if you are not prepared for the unexpected, you end up with a blurry camera-phone picture, which your friends may or may not believe to be photoshopped.

Thanks again, Brett!

One of our resident photographers snapped some great photos of The Donnas on stage and uploaded them to our Backstage Gallery. If you have a story or photos from your own encounter with someone making a 'Ravinia cameo', email us at backstage@ravinia.org.

Matthew Dolkart
Development Writer