Suzanne and Christie first met in 2010 in the cold little town of DeKalb, IL in graduate school. Actually, that’s not exactly true. They briefly met a little before that at an audition to get into said graduate school. It was February of 2010 in a San Fransisco hotel conference room that was serving as a green room for prospective student actors. Christie remembers that first meeting like this:
“I was in this holding room with a bunch of actors who looked about 10 years younger than me and I though two things to myself: 1) ‘Great, if I get in anywhere, I’m going to be the oldest person on campus who is not part of the faculty or staff and 2) I will most likely be the most “seasoned actor” to walk into the audition room and hopefully that will play in my favor.’ That was until I noticed Suzanne. It was hard not to notice her as there were only a small handful of other prospectives waiting and she was neither smacking herself in the face nor was she kissing the wall. I kid you not, that was what was happening in that room. She was just sitting across from me - focused, centered and professional, and like me, was wearing neither a leotard nor character shoes and I again thought two things: 1) ‘Oh thank God. There is another woman here my age who seems to be operating under the same standards of behavior as myself. Maybe we will get into the same school and become life-long friends and 2) Uh-oh, competition.’ We didn’t actually introduce ourselves at this time, but we ran into each other three other times that weekend. In fact, we kept auditioning and interviewing for various schools back-to-back. I think maybe the first thing one of us said to the other was ‘Do you know where the bathroom is?’ and the other responded, ‘No, but I will go and find it with you.’ So we peed together and a magical friendship was born. Or something like that…In all seriousness, I liked Suz right away and just had a feeling we would be friends. I met a number of people that weekend but her’s was the only name I remembered. Months down the road, when our graduate class had officially been assembled, we were all emailed each others’ name and I scanned the list hoping to see her name on it and there it was. I just knew we were destined to be the best of friends.”