Opening night

Tonight is opening night. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I'm in a production of Beauty and the Beast. I'm playing Lumiere the candle stick. I will try and get some pictures for future posts. Well, I have done a lot of shows in the past. In fact, I have being doing theater since I was a freshman in high school. People ask me if I still get nervous, and the answer is a definite YES. Many of the reasons for my nervousness stem from a few instances where I have really messed up and have never gotten over them.

One of these times occurred in a show many years ago. Camelot is a musical based on the King Aurthur story and I was cast as Squire Dap, who is Lancelot's assistant. The show is long and boring, but the cast was fun and it was a great show to be in. Squire Dap is not a large role, but I did have lines and a small solo about half way through the show. Well, on the final dress rehearsal, which by the way was the night the show was being video taped, I was standing back stage before my song started and suddenly got a rush of anxiety. I could not remember the words to my song. In fact I could not remember even the first word. As the music started, I remember feeling my heart pounding in my chest, and I thought, "Ok, it'll come to me" as I walked on stage. The music continued to build to the point where I was suppose to enter. When it was time for me to sing, I opened my mouth, and nothing came out. Absolutely nothing. I looked down into the orchestra pit, and the director was mouthing the words, but it just didn't help. I was crashing. Afterwords, I felt horrible, not only about myself, but because I let people down.

Afterwards, I tried everything to remember those words. I actually wrote them in my hat, and spent the whole next day practicing taking off my hat and looking at the words without looking to obvious. Its just not natural to look into a hat, especially when you are singing.

Anyway, opening night came, and I found myself in the same situation. Heart pounding, sweat building on my upper lip, the same anxiety as before. The words taped into my hat did not comfort me. As I stood backstage, I forced myself to think about all of the rehearsals where I got the song right, the fun I had developing the character and interacting with the other actors. I told myself that I had to believe and trust in what I had learned. I had to believe in myself. As I walked on stage, I looked down into the orchestra pit, and saw a familiar bead of sweat on the director's lip as he waited to see what if anything would come out of my mouth. I opened my mouth and......

It really does not matter what happened next. The point is that I believed in myself, and trusted in what I had learned. I realized that self-confidence can over come anxiety. Every opening night I have, I think about that feeling, and when I start to get that strange feeling in my gut (kinda like I'm getting today), I think about rehearsals, and what I've learned. I have self-confidence. It does not eliminate the anxiety, but it allows me to cope with it. However, even with that self confidence, there is no way I will ever let Thea watch that Camelot video. Somethings are better left unseen. Wish me luck tonight.