![]() ![]() Want me to go with you, son?” Without hesitation, I replied, “Nope.” Not because I was embarrassed to be seen with my dad, although I was the prime age for that, but because I had just become a teenager and I wanted to purchase a PG-13 movie ticket without my parents. Bored and lonely, I asked my dad to take me to the movies. I was juggling two jobs to balance my tuition costs, but I always had Saturdays off. On winter recess in February 1994, I was home from Interlochen. Ryan Spahn (right) in an Interlochen production of Much Ado About Nothing. There was a dollop of this little movie involved, too. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely just Sadie. But there was one thing we did together that taught me more than anything else. We pumped up each other’s egos, made each other laugh and challenged each other’s imaginations. Sadie and I connected over shared dreams of starring in Romeo and Juliet, being roommates at Juilliard and headlining whatever WB series Kevin Williamson created. I didn’t realize at the time, but I would come to have an affinity for women in a way I would never have with men, even if I was romantically interested in the latter. She was intimidating her wit, her talent, her strength. With seemingly effortless aplomb, Sadie could make an entire room aspire to be her. She was a local gal who had grown up in the town adjacent to Interlochen. I spotted Sadie – a teen bombshell with curly, red hair that rivaled any child star of Annie – in my third period theatre arts class. A teenage Ryan Spahn with Sadie Grossman. All I needed was a friend.Įnter Sadie Grossman. Studying acting at a boarding school would be my shot at a total revamp. He spoke of “going to Juilliard.” I thought, “I must do that.” I closed the magazine, dialed New York City, and a soft-spoken employee answered: “If you want to come to Juilliard, you should go to Interlochen Arts Academy.” I hung up, cashed in my savings, and whisked myself to the mecca of Michigan’s northern woods. One day, I read an interview with the late Robin Williams. I’d stalk my bedroom, raging through my drawers … cobbling together the semblance of the person I thought others needed me to be. The only option for non-family interactions was during school hours, in what felt like a popularity firing squad. As a budding queer kid growing up in the suburbs of Detroit in the ’90s, social hierarchy was a crippling obstacle. ![]()
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