stage fright Archives

Perform Fearlessy Part VI: During the Performance

August 4, 2009 By Ian Sidden

You’ve prepared, you’ve walked onto the stage, and now you are there doing exactly what you want to be doing.

Are you afraid? Do you feel like Atlas (see picture) holding up the world of the performance entirely on your shoulders and filling yourself with anxiety?

Hopefully the answer is ‘no’. Personally, though, I have gotten scared in the middle of a performance for all sorts of reasons. It’s a lame feeling, but there are ways of moving away from it.

Explore your role.

Though you must not make any big changes once the show is opened, you must go through some rediscovery at every performance. Get involved in this discovery, and try to leave your worries out of it. If you’ve prepared well, then you will respond.

Connect with your cast mates.

If you’ve ever watched “So You Think You Can Dance”, then surely you’ve heard the judges criticize somebody for not connecting to their partner. Performing is less about you alone and more about the relationships unfolding onstage. So make relationships! By doing this, performing becomes a team effort rather than a Atlas-like struggle.

Do Something with your Audience

Begin developing your audience strategy and continue to develop it with every performance. Orson Welles had a fascinating outlook on audiences (thanks to Opera Chic for finding this clip):

Audiences, in the real sense of the word, are disappearing. There are almost none left. It’s an endangered species…This isn’t an audience here (referring to studio audience). No, no, no, wonderful lovely people. And we’re so grateful for you, but you’re not an audience; you got in free. And not only did you get in free, but you know as does every studio audience that you are not here to do anything except be a member of the cast and help us look good. Seriously, have you ever seen a television show where the audience booed and hissed or refused to applaud? It’s always a big hit on television isn’t it? People that come to the show know that they’re part of the cast and have to help us not to look ridiculous. Our real audience is two or three people in a living room scattered all over the place, but that isn’t a real audience.

An audience is a big many-headed-beast crouching out there in the darkness waiting to eat us up or love us or whatever, and it must be either seduced or tamed or raped or whatever, and it must be dealt with because anybody who deals with a real audience as I have — my goodness, think how long I’ve been in show business… I’ve been hissed and booed, I’ve had things thrown at me– until you’ve had that experience, you don’t understand what dealing with an audience is.

So what will you do? Try something and it might work. At the very least it gets you active, which should make you less afraid.

Focus on something small

If you get flustered, try concentrating on something small that’s on stage and then slowly widen your attention. Focus on your breathing. Focus on your cast members. Just find something to focus on, and if your mind wanders then bring it back again and again, until it begins to work for you.

Have fun.

After all, this is what you claim to love.

Accept that you might be afraid.

Use it. It is fuel that you normally don’t have. If you’re afraid, then treat it like gasoline and use your dedication as a match to perform real energy.

Have you ever gotten totally frightened during a show? If so, what did you do? How did it affect your enjoyment of performing?

Perform Fearlessly Part V: Right Before a Performance

August 3, 2009 By Ian Sidden

Recently, I felt flustered through the beginning of a performance. My mind was wandering and grasping at myriad subjects even while the songs were completely unrelated. This left me feeling afraid and caused me to make a few strange mistakes that I had previously never made.

The experience really bothered me, and upon reflection, I realized that I didn’t do what I normally do before I sing.

I didn’t focus.

Pre-Performance Focusing

Ideally, your time spent on the day of a major performance will be all sunshine, hammocks, light breezes, and quiet meditation, but if it’s anything like most of my performance days, it’s full of travel, last minute preparations and –I admit it– caffeine. Therefore, a performer must take a few moments and gather up his/her brain into a usable mass.

[This is especially important before a recital because your exposure to the audience is so great, and the format offers you little time to rest and regain composure.]

Try these suggestions:

Focus on your breath. Just watch the rise and fall of your body. Try to relax that little spot right below your sternum. Beware of trying to “prove to yourself” that you’re breathing by gasping and working too hard. Just take it easy and breathe.
Focus on your posture. Are you holding any weird muscular tensions that are throwing off your balance? Let them go.
Find some alone time. It is important to commune a little with your fellow performers, but you probably need to vanish for a few minutes before you go onstage.
Do some light exercise. There are a few yoga poses that I especially like to do before I sing. They always help me sing, and they help me focus on my physical and mental condition at that moment.
REALLY WARM UP. Sorry for the caps, but you must sing full voiced and in all registers of your voice before you will feel good about performing. Let ‘er rip a little bit before you go onstage…
…But not too much. Don’t let your anxieties feed into your warm-up routine. Remember, you are warming up your mind as much as your voice, and you should be paying attention to what you are doing. I once listened to a good baritone completely exhaust his voice before a major performance out of fear that his voice was already too tired to perform. You can’t sing your high notes in advance, so chill out once your voice is good and warm.

If you are feeling genuine fear, along with the above suggestions, try these:

Remind yourself that if you fail, your life won’t be over.
Remind yourself that you won’t fail.
Remember, you cannot solve the future in your mind. The best way to be prepared for any mishaps is to stay present.

What strategies do you employ right before a performance?

Perform Fearlessly Part IV: The Day of the Performance

July 18, 2009 By Ian Sidden

By this point of preparation, you can do little to fundamentally change your outlook on the nature of a performance. So your best bet is to set up conditions so that you are in peak shape to perform even if you still have lingering worries.

Get enough sleep the night before. Pavarotti said in Great Singers on Great Singing that on a typical performance day he would sleep in until noon. Rest!
Eat enough….but not too much. It’s scary being so stuffed that you cannot breathe, but it’s equally frightening to be so famished that you have no strength. This will probably deserve its own post in the future, but you must learn what is best for your body and your voice when you eat. Before a performance, try eating a light meal a few hours in advance. Then bring fruit to the performance to refuel while you are taking breaks.
Beware of Caffeine. In my most recent Weekly Gathering, I posted Coffee Breakdowns: Is There a Link Between Caffeine and Hallucinations? This quote is particularly ominous for the potentially worried performer:

Caffeine heightens the physiological effects of stress, lead author Simon Jones says. When someone feels anxiety, the body releases the hormone cortisol, and when people drink plenty of caffeine-infused tea, coffee or soda, their body produces more of the hormone when they encounter stressful events. Researchers have proposed that cortisol may trigger or exaggerate psychotic experiences by increasing the amount of the neurotransmitter dopamine flowing into the brain’s limbic areas, evolutionarily ancient regions involved in emotion, memory and behavior.

I tend to get fearful jitters if I drink a lot of caffeine before a show. It’s usually unnecessary, anyway. The material should be stimulating enough to keep you awake.

Warm-up slowly. Noodle around with your voice and body throughout the day just to keep it moving. Then warm-up about a half-hour before the performance. Of course, your mileage may vary, so pay attention to the signals your body is giving out.
Trust that you Know Your Material: If you prepared properly, your material is learned. Try to avoid singing it over and over because you’ll tire out your voice and your mind. If you must, just recite your words to yourself and remember your acting intentions.
Relax and Focus: You must pamper yourself a bit on the day of a big performance. Rest, take relaxing walks, do very light exercise, meditate, eat refreshing meals, drink water, etc. Try to avoid moving heavy furniture on a performance day. Accept that certain things must be put on hold, and let them go.

Do you have your own ideas about how to stay relaxed on performance day? Do you agree that being relaxed on performance day is necessary? If you have any comments, please leave them below!

Perform Fearlessly Part III: During Rehearsal Period

July 16, 2009 By Ian Sidden

The best time to eliminate fear is to do it during the rehearsal period. At rehearsal, you have a friendly and sympathetic audience before which you can face your fears. Take advantage!

Look at these following areas:

Is your material learned? By learned I mean your text, your music, your technique, your blocking, your acting choices. Can you recite the text of a piece in a foreign language without any musical cues while a jackhammer and the Star-Spangled Banner are sounding in the background? If not, then you are setting up a scary situation. Do you know what your character wants from the other characters? If not…
Did you explore your acting limits? If you cannot really challenge yourself and your interpretation of a character in front of your fellow performers, then what chance do you have in front of a paying audience? By exploring the limits of your character, you also know how far you can go with the character and still have it work. Make big choices in rehearsals, and whittle it down to what you use in performance.
Sing with your brains. You must learn to mark with your voice to avoid exhausting your voice during the rehearsals. It’s very scary to perform knowing that your instrument is exhausted. Make your priorities about when it’s good to sing full out and when to back off. At first, marking will feel strange, but it is usually ok with the director and the conductor if you back off a bit.

These are only three areas, but they are big. I reiterate: take advantage of your co-workers by challenging your fear with them around. Make big brave choices. It makes you stronger, and it builds trust between you, your cast-mates and director. All good things!

Perform Fearlessly Part II: Pre-Rehearsal Period

July 14, 2009 By Ian Sidden

Hypothetical: You’ve just been hired for a job. You know exactly what you’ll be doing; you have a month to figure it out; and then the rehearsals begin. Though it seems distant, you can begin dealing with your future stage-fright now.

Dissolve Stage Fright Before Rehearsals Begin

Decide if you are ready for the role. You might not be. If someone offered me Otello tomorrow, I would be flattered, but I would turn it down. If you are ready then…
Figure out your technique. The rehearsal period does not have enough time for you to learn how to sing your part. Take lessons, practice like crazy, get coachings, and do what it takes.
Learn your music ACCURATELY. Take the time to get it right now. This will make stage fright less likely, and you’ll have a better rehearsal period. See my earlier post Learning Music for a method for accurate music learning.
Begin making acting choices. You should have some ideas about your character before you arrive to rehearsals. You may not stick with your earliest choices, but it’s imperative to think about this now. What does your character want? What strategies will he/she employ to get that? etc.
Listen to your emotions: During this time you should listen to your emotions. Personally, I get anxious whenever I am avoiding something important…like practicing. If you are feeling strange or nervous now, figure out why and deal with it.
Continue dissolving your poisonous assumptions. Those were:

“A judgmental audience is watching me.”- Counter with: They want me to succeed.

“I must succeed.” Counter with: My worth is not determined by any performance.

“I might fail.” Counter with: Only if I don’t prepare.

“Nobody will love me ever again if I fail.” Counter with: Yes, they will.

And keep breathing. See you tomorrow.

[Thoughts on stage fright? Any suggestions? Please leave a comment below.]