Michael, Patrick, Cat, and Ariel met as graduate students in a vocational school in Connecticut. Given the circumstances, they hit it off (or pretended to until they actually did). 

Fake Friends locate themselves as queer theater artists—more specifically, as gay, queer, and straight-”passing” people—more specifically, as one actor and three dramaturgs who swap roles and wigs according to the occasion. They work in the lineage of queer theater that arouses the crises and delights of artificiality. 

Dramaturgy, in its myriad manifestations and contortions, serves as the critical bedrock of their collaboration: a sense of critical rigor, self-critique, and a love for research, as well as giddy depravity, undergird their collaborations. Acting, in its myriad manifestations and contortions, also serves as an entry point to their process.

The company adapts their process for each project and invites additional artists, performers and technicians to collaborate on particular works. Often but not always, they generate work through improvisation, collage, and found text, rapidly oscillating between non-hierarchical communitarianism and deeply hierarchical screeching.

They have taught workshops for undergraduates at Hamilton College, Wesleyan University, and Yale University.