[Janethebrain]

If casual nudity is your thing, and it is definitely one of my things (along with dares and games) there is no better entry than being a theater major in college. Sooner or later (sooner in my experience) you will end up having to do quick changes backstage and there is no time for modesty and usually no space to create separate changing areas, so everyone just strips and dresses as fast as they can while discreetly checking out your cast mates.

In four years I probably was seen in my underwear, topless and occasionally fully naked by at least 60 different people, probably more, and of course I saw most of them in their undies or less too. And the backstage changing is just one part. Costume fittings and rehearsals also create many opportunities to see and be seen, and for the most part everyone goes through these together rather than separated by gender.

But for the most part these are just quick glimpses as people are changing, and backstage it’s almost always dark and happening so quickly that you don’t really get a good look even if the other person is standing right in front of you. The casual nudity part is a result of everyone having seen each other, combined with the free-spirited attitude common among theater people.

My Junior year, I lived in a house with 3 other girls all of whom were in theater. Almost immediately after moving in it became normal for us to walk around in our underwear or hang out watching TV in just panties and a t-shirt. We also would sometimes walk around naked after a shower or getting ready to go out. We generally tried to be dressed decently if we had company, and we were always respectful of each other if a guy we were interested in came over to hang out, but when our guy friends from theater were at our house we sometimes got a little crazy.

A couple memorable incidents:

- shortly after we moved in there was a long heat-wave and all we had was a couple fans to cool us down so we put them both in the living room and sat around in front of the fans drinking beer and trying to stay cool. My roommate Sonya was sitting right next to the fan holding her T-shirt away from her body to let the breeze cool her down when she just said, “fuck it” and pulled off her shirt, mopped her face with it and then threw it in the direction of her bedroom. The rest of us immediately did the same, and were surprised to feel how much difference it made even though our T-shirts were thin cotton.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. Everyone grabbed their shirts and pulled them back on including me, and Chrissy who was wearing gym shorts answered the door. It was one of our theater friends Jim who was coming to see our house for the first time and walked in carrying a twelve-pack of Miller High-Life as a welcome gift. We gave Jim a quick tour of the house and then went back to the living room and opened fresh beers.

As soon as we sat down, Sonya scooched over to the fan and pulled her shirt off, and the rest of us did too. Jim said, “good idea” and pulled off his shirt. We had been in dressing rooms with Jim before, and I know he had seen me topless several times, and probably the other girls too, but this was a whole new thing. We all sat around in a well-lit room, topless, for at least an hour and occasionally made comments about each other’s boobs, but nobody said a thing about it. And once we knew how much it helped, we were all topless around the house until the weather cooled down a couple weeks later.

- Another time we hosted a cast party after closing night of the Fall play. We had a keg in the kitchen and probably 30-40 people at our house. We were all pretty drunk when a debate broke out about what we should do for our Spring musical. There were votes for Oklahoma, Jesus Christ Superstar and then one of the guys suggested Hair. The girl standing next to him, elbowed him in the stomach and said that he just wanted an excuse to get naked on stage. He replied, “this boy’s not afraid to show his penis for the sake of art.” Everyone laughed and there was a lot of agreement with his statement. Then to make his point, he stripped naked on the spot and challenged everyone who thought we should do Hair for our next musical to join him.

About half the people in the kitchen (including me) immediately stripped off their clothes, and after some teasing, two or three more followed closely behind. The ones who didn’t went into the living room and told everyone what we had done and a bunch of them came running to the kitchen and found us all naked singing Age of Aquarius. A bunch of them also got naked and we all spilled back into the living room about 3/4 of the party now naked and everyone singing. We probably stayed naked for 30 minutes and then one by one we all got dressed.

Those are two of my favorite memories of casual nudity. Oh and we didn’t do Hair that Spring because it cost too much to get the rights. I think the school was concerned about the naked scene, but they told us it was a cost issue.