PERFORMANCE: The Actors' Roundtable: "Stage Fright"

Each week, Paden Fallis poses one question to a group of professional working actors from a variety of backgrounds. Our goal is not to demystify the work of the actor or explore their careers, but to dig a bit deeper into their artistic working process. ACTOR’S ROUNDTABLE: STAGE FRIGHT In my one-man show, The Play About The Coach, the thoughts and actions run a mile a minute—a sprint from beginning to end. At moments during the show, I become aware of the speed that my mouth is moving and the pace that the words are flying. I worry that if I drop a word or a line, the whole thing might go off the rails. At other points in the play, I’ll feel the watchful eye of the audience bearing down and the pressure is such that I fear I might figuratively drop the ball and break down in tears. I cite these two examples as being the seeds of Stage Fright. Stage fright is one of those terms that actors have heard since day one. I’ve yet to experience a real bout of stage fright, but we know it can hit any of us, from Olivier on down. It’s the price of doing business in live performance. Have you experienced stage fright? And, if so, how clearly can you explain that feeling to us? Conversely, if you don’t have the experience, do you fear it? - Paden Fallis, Performing Arts Contributing Editor

WILLIAM BELCHAMBERS Stage fright as a whole is something that has never really taken me over. I use the term “taken over” because I have had some friends who have been through hypnotherapy to deal with it, other people who are regularly sick before some shows, and even people who walk out on a big show five minutes before press night. I remember I was doing a season in the West End, at the Apollo Theatre. It’s a very old theatre with a terribly dark and dingy backstage area and the wings are lit by fairy lights that were put there by Mark Rylance when he did Jerusalem. I was taking my Mum, a non-actor, around backstage and I stepped out on the stage instinctively thinking that she would just follow me out. There was no one in the auditorium. It was 10 in the morning. But she couldn’t do it. I said, “Mum, there’s no one here, it’s empty.” To which she replied, “Yes William, but it’s still terrifying.”

NELSON LEE There have been many times when I’ve been in the wings, calmly staring up at the cue light awaiting my entrance, only to have that calm hijacked by a wave of panic as I’ve convinced myself that I no longer know my lines. Or to already be on stage, staring at my scene partner, pretending to listen, all the while terrified because I’m blanking on what comes next. You know how sometimes saying a word over and over again in your head makes it lose all meaning? It’s kind of like that. You live with these words and movements for so long that your brain starts playing tricks on you. No matter how illogical these kinds of fears may be, they can have disastrous results if you are not prepared and, even more importantly, do not trust that preparedness. In my experience, the only thing you can do when any level of stage fright creeps upon you is to take a deep breath, walk out, and believe that when your mouth opens, it will remember what to do. And while it can be highly disconcerting to have these inner battles before stepping on stage, there is a part of me that craves this sensation of fear and anxiety, the nerves that swell in your gut right before you go on. It is a feeling I have yet to experience on a film or television set. It is one of the things I most cherish about live performances.

LAURIE OKIN I don’t know that I can say I’ve been on stage and experienced the classic stage fright; however, I have copious amounts of experiences with the underbelly of that phenomenon, which is the ubiquitous actor dream of walking out onstage having not learned the lines, and being thoroughly under-prepared in every way. These dreams have come to me throughout the years, regardless of whether I’m in a play at the time. The theme of the dream is clear, and focuses on the seconds before I open my mouth and reveal to the entire audience that I have no right to be where I am. It is the anticipation of certain disaster. Worse, it is the anticipation of a disaster of my making, because I either didn’t learn my role or let someone push me out onstage without telling them I wasn’t prepared. It’s a terrifying dream. It feels like life or death, and I guess this probably is because of what the feeling signifies to me in my life: True failure—inadequacy at the one pursuit to which I’ve devoted my professional life. I don’t know whether doctors, police workers, scientists, and other professionals have these kinds of “what if I really don’t deserve the life I’ve chosen” dreams. I can only imagine that part of it, though, is the very public nature of what we do, that if I did in fact screw something up in my job, it would be out there in a very public way the instant it happened. That aspect is particularly terrifying, and I imagine has a lot to do with the crippling element of true stage fright.

MARK ORISTANO At the depth of the Great Depression, FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” I think that’s pretty good advice for actors, too. We’ve all had moments where we had to stop and figure out where we were and what was going on and who was supposed to say what next. The best piece of advice I ever got for overcoming those moments came from director René Moreno, who said whenever something like that happened, it was most important to keep breathing. If you keep breathing and stay calm, it’ll all come back to you. The scariest thing for me is not that I might get stage fright, but when I’m on stage with somebody who has those huge eyes that indicate absolute terror. All you can do then is try to figure out what’s supposed to come next and hope you can do it. The best save I ever saw in this situation came in a play I wrote and was watching from the audience. It was a court martial drama, and an actor playing one of the lawyers jumped about five pages of dialog. The actor playing the judge realized what happened, banged his gavel and said, “Counselor, I think you’re getting into areas of evidence that haven’t been introduced yet.” The other actor stopped, took a beat, realized what had happened, and jumped back to the proper place.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

William Belchambers is an actor who trained at R.A.D.A and has spent most of his career in theatre, in England, Europe, and U.S.A. Currently performing at The National Theatre, London, he has also spent seasons at The Globe and The Royal Shakespeare Company. Nelson Lee left his native Canada for New York to pursue training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Since then, he has appeared in various television series, including Blade: The Series, Virtuality, Oz, Covert Affairs, Hawaii Five-O, and the Law & Order franchise. Recently, he took to the stage for the world premiere of Zayd Dorn’s play, Outside People, at the Vineyard Theater in New York, and the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) production of Maple and Vine in San Francisco. He currently resides in Los Angeles. Laurie Okin is a Los Angeles-based actress who has been seen over the years in dozens of national commercials, as well as guest starring on The Office and as a series regular on PBS’s Copshop. She has also appeared in Samantha Who?, My Own Worst Enemy, Friends, and MadTV. Laurie also has an extensive background in the theatre and is a company member at The Road Theater and Rogue Machine Theater. Mark Oristano has worked a 30-year acting career in and around a 30-year sportscasting career, which included stints announcing for the Houston Oilers and Dallas Cowboys. On stage, Mark has appeared in works by Shakespeare, Mamet, Simon, Albee, and his own work, including his one-man show, And Crown Thy Good: A True Story of 9-11. Mark lives and acts in Dallas, Texas.

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