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Stage Fright

The Source

Frankenstein of the movies, Boris Karloff, would not go onstage until he had vomited. The young Mel Gibson forced himself into a sweat by doing pushups before each of his high school plays. The actress Stockard Channing says that before each performance she has but one desire: “Head for the nearest airport.” Glossophobia, commonly known as stage fright, has plagued actors, athletes, and public speakers since the first noble Roman senator stood in the forum and wondered if his toga was unzipped. The comedian Jerry Seinfeld observed that since stage fright is a more common phobia than death, then a person speaking at a funeral deserves more of the audience’s pity than the one in the casket. The Great Ethyl Merman performed in a Broadway musical for two straight years, never missing a performance while her understudy stood by, awaiting her call to go on lest the Great Merm fell ill. One night the legendary belter’s voice succumbed to laryngitis, the understudy got the call and immediately left town. The year was 1946. To this day no one has been able to locate the terrified stand-in. Stage fright isn’t reserved for just the rich and famous as the nerve bug freely runs loose in our own community. Jacksonville actor Logan Bobb confesses that, “Before I head on stage, My heart races, my stomach drops and I feel this deep emptiness in the middle of my chest. I have this feeling that I need to move.” Both Mr. Bobb and Scott Stanberry, head of the residency program at ISD admit that it’s best not to stray too far away from the restroom just before the curtain goes up. Stanberry says the fright dwindles once he’s onstage. “The urgency of the situation lessens somewhat as I step up to the curtain, because  I remind myself that much like a pile-up on turn 3 at Indianapolis, theatre fans love to see us melt down. I should clarify, they love to see us work through it, too.” Local dancer and singer Laura Roth claims that her entire body gets into the act. “My palms get sweaty; my throat closes up; my voice suddenly drops several notches in volume; I get really shaky.  One of my worst ideas was to play keyboard for myself at Camp Sunshine auditions.  I walked in and completely forgot how to play the piano.” Jonathan Turner Jr. High teacher Tim Chipman says that although he still sometimes suffers from dry mouth right before a performance, his job as a teacher has lessened the actual fright. 
It seems that experience helps very little in overcoming stage fright. Few local actors have spent more time on stage than local painter Bob Large, who admits to having what actors call “The Dream.” Legions of young actors think they are unique in dreaming of appearing in a play for which they are completely unprepared, when in fact the phenomenon is so common among actors that playwright Eugene Ionesco has actually written a play about the terror, called “The Actor’s Nightmare.” So how does a performer overcome this panic? The attempts at a cure are as varied as the stage roles the actors perform. Large says that the key is preparation: “Gene Laurent told me early on that the only ones who have stage fright are the ones who are unprepared.” Of course thousands of well-prepared actors might disagree. Former Jacksonville actress Lauren Whalen said that, “I get to the theatre as early as I can and try to get comfortable with the environment, socialize. And if it’s not a musical I do some kind of stretching exercise.” 
Springfield attorney and actor Dennis Rendleman has a less scientific cure. “I never turn in a script or music until the show is over and I always carry it with me to and from the show each night. I even carry my costume and props home with me.” Kayla Primm who played the Widow Paroo in last summer’s Springfield Muni production of the Music Man says, “After a while you tell yourself you have to deal with it. My mother was so terrified of performing that she made sure I did a lot of it when I was a girl.” Some sort of physical movement seems to be the key for most performers. Annie Schone of Lincoln Land Theatre gives credit to a girl who used to calm her down before performances. “She’d start by having me take deep breaths then have me do silly dance moves. Of course it helps if you’re in a group of actors if you start acting too weird.” And most experienced actors would admit that growing older only increases the problem as you become aware of more anxieties. Patsy Kelly, chaplain at Passavant and an actress on our local stages states. “I think I experience it more now than before because there is a dread of forgetting that didn’t think about even seven years ago.” Don Schneider of Springfield radio relies upon the old sports maxim, “Winners see what they want, losers see what they want to avoid.” He also relies on a line from Finding Nemo, “Keep Swimming.” And Schneider agrees with many performers that prayer is vital. “Since you can only hold one thought in mind at a time, prayer is calming to me.” Most experienced directors will tell his actors to accept stage fright and use it to their advantage. “In fact,” said one local director, “I don't trust people who don't get stage fright. They obviously don't know what’s going on. 19th-century matinee idol Otis Skinner after 50 years on stage told his daughter, “Any actor who claims he is immune to stage fright is either lying or he’s no actor.”