I don't understand why people think it's ok to hang out in the house after a show (and I mean the theater house, not your own living room) in costume chatting with friends. The whole point of being in a show is to portray someone else. It's not you onstage, you're playing another person. And the whole point the audience has come to the show is to see characters, not people they know onstage. (Yes, they've come to see their friend Joe Schmo, but they've come to see their friend act, not be Joe Shmo onstage. Big difference.) So putting on the costume and make up changes you from Joe Schmo into whoever you're playing. So TAKE IT OFF before you go see your friends and family after the performance! The costume and make up and wig create a mystique. They separate the fantasy from reality. So if before a show, or during intermission, the audience sees you in costume, you've completely blown the fantasy world for them.
This is why I ABHORE those closing nights, walk-off-stage-chat-with-the-audience things. And it's why I WILL NOT talk to you before a show if I'm in costume. Also, if I am visiting a friend in a show, I don't want to see her in costume either! Keep it together until afterwards and we'll go out and have a drink and chat. But until then let's all remember why we are in theater in the first place, and separate our characters from ourselves and the imaginary from reality.
