Stagefright: How to Deal

What to do to deal with Stagefright?

Breathe. Take a deep breath and let it out and do it again.

If you experience a thrill of nervous energy just THINKING about an upcoming improv workshop or show, you're not alone. It might help to know that this nervousness is normal. We have evolved to be on guard when eyes are upon us. Adrenaline helps us be on guard. Adrenaline makes us strong and fast but it also makes us nervous. There are strategies for dealing with nervousness.

What to do in the moment:

First: Consider your nervousness and ask yourself how it shows up. Where do you feel it first? What is your first symptom of nervousness? Reflect on the feeling and evaluate it in different ways. For example, if your first sign of nervousness is butterflies in your stomach, ask yourself: How many butterflies do you have? What color are they? Are they big or small? Where are they located exactly? If your nervousness shows up first as rapid heartbeat you might try counting your heartbeat. What song or style of music could your heartbeat accompany? A march? Rock? Rap?

Whatever your first sign is: Facial flush, shaking knees, blank mind, or dry mouth, take a moment, notice, and consider your experience of the symptom. Envision color, size, shape, and texture. Listen to the sound. Feel the pulse.

Second: Imagine that you're gathering up the symptom and tossing it out of your body. If it's butterflies, catch them in a net and free them.

If your first sign of nervousness is a rapid heartbeat, try this: Breathe in and out in time with your heartbeat (4 counts in, 4 counts hold, 4 counts out, 4 counts hold).

Third: Be patient. Once adrenaline is coursing through your veins, it takes time for it to clear from your bloodstream.

What to do in advance? Get a good night's sleep the night before. Get some exercise. Eat well. Drink your usual amount of caffeine - neither more or less than normal for you.

What NOT to do? Don't use alcohol or drugs to prevent nervousness when you're going into an improv workshop or show. While a glass of wine may give you the experience of being more relaxed, it also dulls your senses and slows your response time. While a little weed may make everything amusing to you, it really doesn't make you funnier. While coke might make you feel more confident, it doesn't make you more attentive.

To deal with your nervousness: Breathe. Take a deep breath and let it out and do it again.

What the Audience Knows

I'm on stage. I'm slightly blinded by the lights and charged with the energy of being observed by a crowd. My scene partner, Diane, says "You seem well". and I'm not sure how to respond. My instinct tells me to run. My training tells me to be positive and agree. Wide eyed I focus my attention on her and say, 'Yes', hoping against hope that something will come of that. A workshop I took a thousand years ago reminds me to focus on the scene's environment - some part of me knows that Diane and I are sisters in a victorian mansion - TEA! I pour imaginary tea from an imaginary pot into an imaginary cup and ask, "One lump or two" wondering if they had sugar in lumps in the Victorian era. Attention to the reality of the objects and the manners of our characters brings the scene into being. There is an odd feeling of calm that is suddenly shattered with the thought: "The audience wants SOMETHING to happen."

"Father went out in a hurry this morning, and he left you a message," I offer her an imaginary piece of note paper. I'm hoping that Diane might make something of it.

She does. Dropping her imaginary tea cup on the floor while providing her own breaking sound, Diane stands suddenly. She asks "Will you read it to me?" She throws the offer back to me. The audience laughs.

In this moment, I have no idea of where the scene is going. Diane has no idea of where the scene is going. We both know that the scene has some potential; it is a visceral feeling. The feeling is luscious and brief. We know it is going somewhere and we don't know where.

The audience knows. The crowd sits in the safety of the dark where ideas live. The imaginations of the members of the audience have easy access and they know where the story is going. Some know the news from father is good, some bad, some mysterious. It could be as childish as, "Father likes me best", or as adventurous as, "It's a treasure map!" No matter what it is, the audience expects it to be significant. They want the note to take us SOMEWHERE. When we are in the audience in the dark, we feel the potential of the moment and it feels like possibility. We wonder, what will the improvisers do?

Almost inevitably, one of the improvisers will kill the idea. An improviser will make a choice that prevents the scene from going somewhere. For example, if I look at the paper in my hand, open the note and say, "It's blank". I've just BLOCKED the offer. Diane could make a new offer like: "I ran into him in the hall and he told me it wasn't important." She just CANCELED the potential of father's note. Or another improviser, previously offstage in the wings, could enter with something new and unrelated. Paul as the butler might enter and say, "Excuse me Miss, Lord Westlington has come to call." He just SIDETRACKED the note with a new idea. On stage we feel the potential of the moment and it feels like danger. We want to protect ourselves from the danger. So when we experience the potential of the moment, improvisers often kill the idea. What makes us kill the potential of the scene? Fear.

As Keith Johnstone has said many times: "It's all fear guys".

To be a good improviser

How to be a good improviser: Know a lot. Talk loud enough on stage to be heard at the back of the audience. Portray a variety of characters. Express yourself, truthfully, in a variety of styles. Work to create story rather than jokes.

How to be a great improviser: Change. Let your partner change you. Let the scene transform you. Let the story change your character's emotion, beliefs, ideas, and status.

Like Yoga for the Brain

When I practice the discipline of improvisation, I feel more alive. In the same way we've learned that we improve our physical balance and function through stretching, we can improve our mental balance and function through improvisation. Improvisation is like yoga for the brain. Increase your mental agility and your ability to think on your feet with the practice of improvisation. To get started, try this: Just play a game with a friend. Tell a story together, taking turns, one - word - at - a - time...

"One - day - after - a..."

After a couple minutes, stop and ask yourself: Did you have long run-on sentences, no protagonist, was it chaos? Was it fun?

Try it again! This time try these suggestions:

- Name your characters: Start with a name - any name. "Bruce - wanted - to - go - to..."

- Use punctuation: Say, "period" at the end of sentences. You still get a word!

- Listen to your partner and honor the story that is being told: Let your partner change you.

How was that? Did it make more sense? Was it still fun?

After a few tries, people usually find that the stories improve and make more sense; they have heroes, events take place, and sometimes ideas take shape in spontaneous harmony.

One of the reasons I love this game is that it is so simple and no matter how many times I play it, it is still spontaneous and playful. If it were predictable, it would no longer be fun.

am I winning?

The struggle for control of the scene in improvisation is a terrific metaphor for life.

In an improv scene the characters, location, and content of the scene provide the frame within which the improvisers struggle for control. Improvisers apply various methodologies to 'win' in a scene or story - some use wit - the power of the mind... some use acting tricks like accents... a gift for rhyme, song, or a clever turn of phrase can steal the scene. For others, physical agility or clowning might be the strategies of choice. Strategies to gain control of the story - to win.

In a meeting, the people, time-frame and agenda are the frame... but the struggle can be the same. Grappling with an agenda - a group of people fight to 'win'. Individuals use various methodologies to gain control of the room or win others over to their perspective. Again, wit, gifts, and agility push and pull the attention of the room.

I'd like to stop trying to win. On stage and in life, I'd like to listen more than I talk. I'd like to use my gifts to gain understanding of the perspectives of my colleagues, rather than to get my point across. I'd like to give up control of the scene and the room - and go on somebody else's ride. Is it possible to play if I'm not trying to win?

It isn't that I want to lose. I'd like to shift the focus of my interactions to the quality of the relationship more often.

...but random is funny

I've noticed that 'random' is deeply valued in entertainment lately. Novice improvisers introduce purposefully random elements to nearly every game and story in my improvisation workshops. A friend of mine who is an expert in generational trends has informed me that 'random' is one of the values of the Millennium Generation.

My gentle encouragement to be 'obvious' is falling on deaf ears. A story about a lost puppy suddenly has purple cheese all over the place. A scene with a marriage counselor incorporates random monkeys, and explosions... or explosions of monkeys... or exploding monkeys. A scene with people on an airplane is likely to incorporate a sudden outbursts of bunnies - or pie - raining from the sky.

Recently I had some success with a student. He is a very smart, fast young person that I love to work with. I'll call him Ivan. Ivan was GREAT at inventing sudden random elements. In one story we were co-creating - he turned the 'old woman' into a witch. That was fine with me... we followed that path. She was making a potion - the story called for a potion that would help the hero of the story - a little boy - find his way home. But Ivan was very creative and random - and made the potion good for turning people blue with polka dots. When I stopped the story - and asked him if making our lost little boy blue with polka dots was helpful to the story - he admitted that his first impulse was to do the obvious and have the potion help the boy find his way home... but, "That seemed to obvious and boring". Okay... I can see that... then I asked Ivan "Does a potion for making people blue with polka dots help the story?" and he GOT it! It was like a light turned on in his head. We backtracked and concluded our story with the little boy finding his way home. And from then on, the little boy always keeping a vial of the potion on hand.

Later we talked about the impulse to be random. Random elements can make us laugh - it is true. When Improv is working - it is full of random elements. The process of co-creation leads spontaneous 'Random'. I love random when it happens accidentally... but when random elements are pushed into scene after scene after scene - we end up with lots of improv that all seems the same; a mess of ideas.

But don’t you NEED conflict to have story?

One of the greatest teachings of improvisation is 'start positive'. When improv students take the stage to begin a scene - we're often full of fear. Fear has a variety of symptoms - racing heart, shallow breath, dry mouth, and for most of us, a frantic mind full of nothing. The fearful brain jumps in with suggestions like, "Say something original, THEN they'll respect you!" Unfortunately in improvisation 'original' isn't very useful.

When your scared brain is telling you to be interesting QUICK - that is EXACTLY when you need to slow down - breathe deeply - and do something obvious.

The fear also instructs us "QUICK! GET IN CONTROL" and often - we go negative to gain control. If an improviser is on stage - desperately trying to come up with something good - the character played by that improviser is very likely to be unhappy.

An improviser, Chaz, sat on a sofa - he asked his scene partner, Alice, to bring him some tea - the tea was offered - and Chaz sipped the tea - spat it out - and proclaimed - "That is awful!" Chaz was momentarily in control. The negative emotion and loud voice filled the theatre with 'drama' and the improviser's fear was diminished. Instantly Alice joined in the negativity - fighting for control. "I make crappy tea for you on purpose because I hate you!" They screamed and threw the pantomimed tea cup and tea pot and Alice broke into histrionic tears.

I've seen thousands of improv scenes like this one and I don't need to see any more. I stopped the scene and asked them to try again.

When I coached Chaz to accept the tea differently - "Like the tea or love it! Say 'It's great!' See where that takes you." Quickly - Chaz pointed out that there would be no conflict and the scene would be boring. Alice nodded sagely. I ask, "How do you know if you haven't tried it? Chaz answers "You need conflict." He's well informed. There are many sources that inform us that to have story - we must have conflict. Unfortunately for improvisers everywhere - it is common knowledge that story requires conflict. My teacher, Keith Johnstone once told me that you may need conflict - but it isn't very helpful in improvisation. I try that approach on Chaz and Alice - "Conflict doesn't seem to be helping this scene". They both furrow their brows. "Why don't we try responding positively and see where it takes us?" They start again.

Once again the tea is offered, Chaz sips from his pantomimed cup. "Mmmmmm" he says, "This is WONDERFUL!" The rest of the class laughs. "I'm so glad you like it! I tried a new type of tea" responds Alice. "Really? You never try anything new." ... suddenly we have back-story and the relationship between the characters takes on new dimension. We learn that they're a married couple, The scene continues on a path that leads to the revelation that Alice has been studying tea secretly behind his back - and that she plans to start a tea import business. Chaz's character gets competitive - he is threatened by his wife starting a company... the first sign I notice is that his expression changes from happy to worried - it takes me a moment but I jump in and stop the scene, "Freeze - go back. When she reveals that she's starting a company - try being over-joyed! It is a good thing"... they pick up the scene where they'd left off - this time when she reveals she wants to start a company he says, "That's a good thing!" (Again there is a laugh from the other students) "You'll make more money!... the scene continues. I stopped them a couple of times when they went 'negative' and coached them back - the scene ended with Chaz and Alice hugging and toasting their new business with cups of tea.

Afterward we all discussed the scene. We learned that Chaz and Alice had fun. The audience was engaged. The scene worked. Everyone in the room experienced that 'starting positive' can make a scene more fun... and that staying positive will take a story in surprising directions.

Unfortunately - it is human nature to be negative when we're under stress. As improvisers - we will make the same mistake again and again. Once the intellect accepts the concept that being positive is good for improvisation - it will still take us many scenes to shift our habits from being negative to being positive. In my experience, it is a journey worth taking.