Such recognition comes as a delightful surprise to the 28-year-old mezzo-soprano. Burns considers herself lucky to have landed the role in the Houston Grand Opera revival (which toured the country for eight months before dropping anchor on Broadway). "I kept thinking, 'When do I find out I have leukemia?' " she recalls. Karla, who has appeared as Queenie in three other productions, objects to charges that the character is a racial stereotype. "There are a lot of dese, dems and dose," she admits. "But Queenie just happened to be born when there was not a lot of education."
That was not the case for Burns, who grew up in Wichita, Kans. Karla inherited a love of music from her jazz-pianist father, who died when she was 7. She attended Wichita State, where she majored in musical education and theater performance. After graduation she began work on a master's degree in theater performance and taught voice privately, as well as doing nightclub shows and regional theater in the Midwest. When she heard that Show Boat was holding auditions in New York last spring, she headed East with one thought: "I want to be aboard!"
The 250-pound actress needs no padding to play Queenie. "After the performances," she says good-naturedly, "people want to poke me to find out if I am real." She uses her size to good advantage on the nationally syndicated children's TV show One of a Kind. As "Karla the Klown," she reports, "I sing a song about being overweight and say you can be loved, you can be a person." Her 26-year-old fiancé, electronics student David Sanders, agrees. Professes Karla, "He loves every ounce of me."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
