Here at The Young Actor’s Studio we want to get into the Halloween season by discussing one of the most frightening things of all. It’s not zombies, or goblins, but… stage fright! Do a Google search for Stage fright and you’ll get 14.6 million results (thus beating goblins by over 3 million).

Why is Stage Fright so common? Do you wish to combat it? Get rid of it? Okay, but you’re you’re going to lose your fight with Stage Fright- we advise to surrender! Why? Let’s start with the experiment of polar bears…

Don’t think of polar bears! Close your eyes and for the next 10 seconds do NOT think of polar bears!

Were you successful? Numerous studies have shown that the vast majority of people will succumb to the thought of polar bears. And this makes sense, right? Simply commanding ourselves to NOT do something isn’t a particularly successful technique.

While we can go through the day without feeling the urge to think of polar bears, it’s a lot harder to avoid the feeling of being nervous/shy/not good enough/scared out of our mind- especially when it involves performing in front of a bunch of people! And yet many of us try to combat these feelings- we hopelessly command ourselves “DON’T be shy! DON’T be nervous!”. How is that working out for you? Probably as successful as the Polar Bear experiment.

So let’s try something different. EMBRACE the nervous, freaked out, alone feeling! Why? Because there’s a very good chance that the character feels the exact same thing! As audience members we don’t go to the theater to see happy, content, comfortable people who are having a relaxing two hours. No! We have fun watching people freak out as they struggle mightily over scary, nerve-wrecking, suspenseful challenges.

As kids and teens (particularly in some acting classes!) we’re told not to be scared, shy, and nervous. But oftentimes we only get half-way there by covering it up- putting on a brave mask to the world. It takes guts to take off the mask and reveal the true self that is oftentimes scared, nervous, and unsure. The actor who has the guts to stop fighting the fright, but reveal it for the audience to see is actually the courageous one. And they will be rewarded with an audience who loves their performance because we all feel those same things, but are too afraid to stop fighting it.