Can I have your autograph?
Suzanne Woods is a bitch.
In the spring of 1987, my parents transferred me from AE Phillips Laboratory School to the Cedar Creek School in Ruston, a private school originally founded in 1970 as a convenient, affordable way for crafty well-to-do white parents to avoid the inevitable integration in rural north Louisiana.
I digress.
The big news for me that year was my first role in a stage musical. Have you ever seen The King and I? All you need to know for this story is that the "King" had lots of sons and daughters from many wives, and I was cast as the youngest one. I was cute and capable of holding tunes a little more complex than my peers. I was excited to be in a big-stage musical, even if it was just the local university, and we had a big-name musical star at the time, Patricia Wells, to boot.
Suzanne Woods was not a big-name star, but you wouldn't have known it from the way she treated me. She was a tiny, demure, blond sophomore at Louisiana Tech University, and all I wanted was for her to sign her name on a poster. I was the youngest prince, cute as hell, and I wanted all of the principal characters to sign my production poster. Anyone else on the monstrous cast could sign it too, but I really wanted primary characters to sign.
Sign they did. Even the big-name star, Patricia Wells. The actor playing the King signed it "to my favorite son." Other members of the mostly-collegiate cast were eager to get their autographs on it. Everyone, that is, except Suzanne Woods. I asked her. Several times. She flatly turned me down each time.
I did what any six-year-old would do. I signed it for her, but I didn't do such a good job. I scrawled, "Suzzane Woods, tuptim" at the top of the poster. It hangs, framed, in my house now, a memorial to the misspelled attempt to offer a tiny measure of glory to an otherwise unremarkable individual.
Suzanne Woods is a relatively minor opera singer now. She just finished up a role in Albuquerque. I don't know where she's performing next, but maybe I'll track her down. She can look for me; I'll be the kid holding a King and I poster.
SMK
In the spring of 1987, my parents transferred me from AE Phillips Laboratory School to the Cedar Creek School in Ruston, a private school originally founded in 1970 as a convenient, affordable way for crafty well-to-do white parents to avoid the inevitable integration in rural north Louisiana.
I digress.
The big news for me that year was my first role in a stage musical. Have you ever seen The King and I? All you need to know for this story is that the "King" had lots of sons and daughters from many wives, and I was cast as the youngest one. I was cute and capable of holding tunes a little more complex than my peers. I was excited to be in a big-stage musical, even if it was just the local university, and we had a big-name musical star at the time, Patricia Wells, to boot.
Suzanne Woods was not a big-name star, but you wouldn't have known it from the way she treated me. She was a tiny, demure, blond sophomore at Louisiana Tech University, and all I wanted was for her to sign her name on a poster. I was the youngest prince, cute as hell, and I wanted all of the principal characters to sign my production poster. Anyone else on the monstrous cast could sign it too, but I really wanted primary characters to sign.
Sign they did. Even the big-name star, Patricia Wells. The actor playing the King signed it "to my favorite son." Other members of the mostly-collegiate cast were eager to get their autographs on it. Everyone, that is, except Suzanne Woods. I asked her. Several times. She flatly turned me down each time.
I did what any six-year-old would do. I signed it for her, but I didn't do such a good job. I scrawled, "Suzzane Woods, tuptim" at the top of the poster. It hangs, framed, in my house now, a memorial to the misspelled attempt to offer a tiny measure of glory to an otherwise unremarkable individual.
Suzanne Woods is a relatively minor opera singer now. She just finished up a role in Albuquerque. I don't know where she's performing next, but maybe I'll track her down. She can look for me; I'll be the kid holding a King and I poster.
SMK