I found this definition of “friend” online: “a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection”. By this definition, being in theatre provides countless opportunities to make friends!
Doing a show with someone (in an on or off stage role) provides an environment where the bonds of friendship can quickly form. Or quickly wither, but more on that later.
I think it’s the shared experience of creating something that encourages friendships to form. Together, you’ve shared good times and bad during the rehearsal period. Whatever else happens, you’ll always have those shared experiences, and so a tenuous bond already exists by the time the show opens.
Often that bond gets fortified during the run of the show. For that span of time, you are a member of a small temporary community within the larger theatre community. As people do in communities, you often learn more about each other with each passing day.
In the dressing rooms, in the green room, at cast parties, tongues are loosened, hair is let down, and people often share stories that let you see deeper into their personality than under normal circumstances. Often this tests the boundaries of your newly formed friendship, depending on what you learn.
You may learn, as we did with Robert (all names changed), that your fellow cast member is a sexual pervert who invites you to a “swingers” party. You may learn about the surfeit of drama that some people attract to their life, as we did with Sheila and Sue.
But you also have the chance to see people rise to the occasion and show the best they have to offer. We saw this in Penny, who insisted on going on in her role, despite having been in a car accident three days prior. We saw this in Mike, who replaced a sick cast member at the last minute and knocked it out of the park with his performance. We saw this with Steve and Jane who showed up with a bottle of wine and a willing shoulder the day after Kurt’s father’s funeral.
With each of these experiences, theatre friendships ebb and flow, and by the end of the run you are either still friends or heartily sick of one another. On rare occasions, you may be both, as we found with Ralph whom we love dearly and with whom we can never do another show without risking our sanity.
In non-theatre life, the measure of a friendship is often how much time people spend together. That’s a difficult measure to use with theatre friendships because working show after show on top of a day job tends to leave one with little time for socializing.
So we are left with the bonds we’ve formed and the mutual affection we feel. Over time we learn who we can count on when we’re in pain or need help, and sometimes we get pleasant and unpleasant surprises. We learn that some friendships truly stand the test of time, and our lives are much richer for it.