Friendships #2

BFFs? I know a guy! In fact, five of them.

I mention them in Audio Chimera Episode #61: the friend group that grew out of a theatre production. Early in my teaching career at Penn State Hazleton (1993 to be exact), I directed Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw—with the production being an outgrowth of my master’s thesis, Classical Elements of Plot and Character in Joe Orton’s What The Butler Saw. (This blending of research and production would serve me well throughout my career.)

More interesting to me, however, is the aforementioned friend group, and how I’ve remained in touch with some of them and how they are all still contact with one another.

Two of the group were actors: Keith and Jason. Jason most recently played Claudius and King Hamlet in my zoom production of Dark Hamlet.

Dave, a drummer, brought in his band to play music for the show. When I last traveled to Las Vegas for a conference, I met up with Dave for a trip to the Hoover Dam and a Thai dinner. One of his bandmates, Jeremy dePrisco, has continued to be a friend and collaborator ever since.

Two of the tech people, Chad and Jay, joined the others in the group. Funny story about Jay: years later he was talking about another show he worked on at Hazleton to a colleague in California. The colleague—my long-time friend Mike from Berkeley—said, “I saw that show!” He was visiting for just that purpose, and then, years later, found they had been in the same place at the same time.

I have another story about that. When I was in Northeast PA, I entered a contest for tickets to a concert with Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Also: the aforementioned Chad was the person in charge of parking, and put us in a space where we could leave at the head of the pack after the show. Years later, I mentioned to my technical director at the time, John Teacher, that I was at the concert. He said, “Me, too!”

It’s a small world, as they say. And it’s made more fun by enduring friendships.