From Caught in the Act, the official blog of the Straz Center
School-Girl Crush
The Straz Center’s
96-year-old
volunteer
extraordinaire,
Margaret
Goodson,
dishes on her love
of Forever Plaid.
There are certain things people
just know about Tampa:
Cigars • Cuban sandwiches
Sports • Magic Mike
and Margaret Goodson.
If a place is lucky, it will have one spectacular person so ingrained in
its culture and identity that you can’t separate the two. Margaret is
that person for us. Everybody knows her, everybody loves her – and
Margaret loves The Plaids.
Margaret turned 96 a few weeks ago, and she’s been with The Straz
longer than almost anyone. She’s volunteered here for 30 years, doing
all kinds of jobs to help save us time and money (hey, we’re a nonprofi
t!), even stepping in to “play” the washed-up Little Orphan Annie
character during a photo shoot for our Forbidden Broadway ad
campaign years ago.
It was here in the Jaeb Theater many, many moons ago when Margaret,
coerced by a friend, attended Forever Plaid for the fi rst time. “I can’t
explain what happened. It was the songs, the show … and four
handsome young men helps. I was hooked. I fell in love,” she says.
“I’ve had a school-girl crush on The Plaids a long time. Ever since the
beginning. I’ve seen them everywhere I could – two times in Las Vegas,
once in Orlando. When the show is here, I see it as many times as I
can,” Margaret says, quickly acknowledging she could be considered a
Plaid groupie. “Everybody who knows me knows Forever Plaid is ‘my
show.’ It’s not like I like this one actor or have a crush on one character