It all started with Courteney Cox.
Before landing the role of Monica Gellar on “Friends,” Cox appeared in the 1984 music video for the classic Bruce Springsteen track, “Dancing in the Dark,” as the lucky young woman pulled onstage at St. Paul Civic Center to dance with The Boss.
The vid launched an unofficial decades-long tradition whenever Springsteen & The E Street Band perform the pop anthem.
Prospective dance partners are shelling out big bucks to see Springsteen’s upcoming shows at Madison Square Garden (April 1), The Barclays Center in Brooklyn (April 3); UBS Arena on Long Island (April 9 & 11 ) and the Prudential Center in Newark (April 14).
Cassie Dragos, who has tickets to see 14 shows on The Boss’s current tour — including the upcoming April 1 Garden gig — followed in Cox’s footsteps to the footlights the night she saw Springsteen & The E Street Band at Bryce Jordan Center in University Park, Pa. on April 18, 2016.
“She wore her IU [Indiana University] hat and black and and white checkered shirt,” Cassie’s mom, Terri Dragos told The Post this week.
Her fourth show in two weeks, Indiana native Cassie Dragos’ “elbows were on the stage and Springsteen was just inches away” when she received the call, according to her local paper, the County Herald-Dispatch.
“I wasn’t nervous, there was nothing. Everything was gone and I could hear everything he was saying to me,” Dragos told the paper. “I was handed a guitar and when I turned around he was there and I was just like, ‘Oh my God.’”
Luck was with Dragos that night.
She got the night off from her manager’s post at an AMC Theater in Hobart, Indiana, got a last-minute hotel for the 500-plus mile trek to PA and scored a spot in the pit, on the floor near the front of the stage.
“He saw me during the third song,” she told the paper, which noted it was not until the encore when her dream came true.
“At the end of the show, when they were taking their final bow, he pointed at me and said, ‘Thanks for a great night,’” she said. “It was like I made it a great night. It’s amazing because you know Bruce Springsteen is having as much fun as I was.”
“We’re all big Springsteen fans,” her mom said, noting Cassie was hooked when she saw Bruce and the band rock out at the 2009 Super Bowl halftime show. “She was like, ‘Who is that guy?’”
Kaileen Rozanski of Avon, NY, went dancing in the dark with The Boss in August 2012 at Vernon Downs in Vernon, NY.
As the band played, the pair hugged and danced, and Bruce even gave her his harmonica, Syracuse.com reported.
“Unfortunately, I don’t currently have tickets to any shows on this tour,” Rozanski, now 29, emailed The Post this week.
Springsteen fanatics looking for their moment of onstage fame may be out of luck.
Bruce watchers say The Boss hasn’t been extending the onstage invite during his current tour.