THE Peter Gruner
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking about my name and Billy Kidman. And who deserved ownership of our name.
It’s funny because at home, I’m known as “The Peter Gruner.”
True story.
A few years ago, my wife Deb got back into acting after a twenty year break. So now we were both involved in community theatre.
Her first show was at Dundas Little Theatre. In a show called Time and the Conways by JB Priestly.
A few weeks into rehearsals, she was chatting with some fellow cast members. My name came up.
Community Theatre is a close-knit group. I had worked with some of them in other shows or they had seen one of my plays at Fringe.
Deb and I have different last names. And I guess she usually called me “Peter” when referring to me. If you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t know that she and I are married.
But on this occasion my last name was mentioned.
Ryan, one of her castmates said, “Wait a minute. You’re married to Peter Gruner…? The… Peter Gruner?”
This was right after my play Minced had won Best of Fringe at the Hamilton Fringe festival. So I had a brief notoriety. Very brief.
Deb’s fatal flaw was telling me the story.
I took great glee in calling myself “The Peter Gruner.”
I would bask in personal glory that someone I didn’t really know at the time would refer to me as “the”.
Take that Billy!
I drove her nuts, smugly referring to myself in the third person.
And much to Deb’s chagrin, other people heard the story and started referring to me as “The Peter Gruner” as well.
To most of the world my name is synonymous with some wrestler. But to small group of people I will always be “The Peter Gruner.”
And I’m okay with that.
