When Your Castmate Votes Against Your Rights

by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder

This started with a message from a friend. They’d just gotten cast in a show they were excited about—great part, great creative team. But as rehearsals got underway, they realized that one of their castmates were proudly conservative. Not “we just disagree on policy” conservative. The kind of conservative that actively supports legislation and rhetoric that hurts queer people, immigrants, women, people of color—basically, anyone who doesn’t look or live like them.

My friend, who is queer, was trying to figure out how to exist in that space. How to do trust falls with someone who voted for a party that’s trying to legislate them out of existence. How to harmonize with someone who wouldn’t mind seeing your rights stripped away if it meant lower egg prices.

And honestly? I’ve been there, too.

Theater is weird. It’s built on community and connection and the idea that we can only tell a story if we all do it together. You literally have to listen, to support, to stand in a spotlight with someone who might not believe you deserve to stand there at all. It’s intimacy without consent. Collaboration without compatibility. And it’s not easy.

It’s not about garden-variety disagreements. This isn’t about who should pay more taxes. It’s about being in a room with people who support policies that make your life harder, smaller, or less safe—and then being expected to smile and sing in unison like everything’s fine.

It’s not fine.

But we also know the drill. Most of us don’t have the luxury of turning down opportunities because someone in the cast voted differently. We’re here to work. To tell the story. To make something beautiful out of borrowed props, fluorescent lighting, and overworked vocal cords. So we make space for the art, for ourselves, and sometimes, if we’re being honest, for the discomfort.

Some of that means compartmentalizing. You focus on your scene. Your lines. Your choices. You lean on the people in the cast who do see you. You nod politely and find reasons to take long walks at lunch. You smile backstage and scream into your car steering wheel on the way home.

You decide when to engage and when to protect your energy. Maybe you ask questions and hope for conversation. Maybe you don’t, because you know it won’t go anywhere. That’s okay. You don’t owe anyone your patience, your explanation, or your forgiveness just because you share a call time.

I also know that someone on the other side of the political spectrum might be feeling something, too. Maybe they feel outnumbered in a liberal-leaning cast. Maybe they’re afraid to speak up because the minute they reveal their views, they’ll be dismissed as the villain of the story. Maybe they grew up with certain beliefs and haven’t had a reason—or safe space—to challenge them yet. They might not even realize the weight of what their views carry for others.

I wish I had a happier wrap-up here. A Broadway ending where you find common ground over choreography and change hearts mid-rehearsal. But that’s not real life. Sometimes the most honest thing you can do is recognize the gap between your values and theirs—and decide to finish the show anyway.

Because this space is yours, too. The theater doesn’t just belong to the loudest voices or the ones with the most privilege. It belongs to all of us, including the people whose rights are being debated, like it’s up for discussion.

So if you’re currently smiling through a show with someone who votes against your humanity, know this: you’re not alone. So many of us have stood in that same stage left wing, silently wondering how someone can sing “Seasons of Love” with you and still cheer for politicians who want to cut those seasons short.

We keep showing up anyway—not because it’s easy, but because it’s ours.