Stage Fright

How improvisers have dealt with fear of stepping on stage.

What happens when you get stage fright and how have some improvisers overcome it? This episode features personal stories about how people have overcome their own anxieties about performing at a time when some others are feeling nerves for the first time.

If you are experiencing any sort of anxiety in relation to going onto the stage, do talk to someone about it. I hope this podcast is helpful but please remember, if you need advice on your specific situation, do see a professional.

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This show features:

Luke Benson:

You can hear Luke on Look What’s After Happening - an improvised comedy podcast where Luke and Mark Cantan present a nonsensical history of the world as characters Colin Spress and Cillian Vermillion, without the burden of facts or knowledge. Recent guests include Jess McKenna, Dan Lippert, Jon Gabrus and Ryan Rosenberg.

Neil Munro:
Neil works as a media producer, filmmaker, photographer, editor, performer, & podcaster. His is the editor of the We Are What We Overcome Podcast about mental health - https://facebook.com/WAWWOpodcast/

Susan Messing:
Find Susan on Twitter at @MessingSusan 

The Improv Chronicle Podcast is produced and hosted by Nottingham improviser Lloydie James Lloyd

Theme music - Sam Plummer

Logo design - Hélène Dollie

Episode transcript:

This… is the Improv Chronicle podcast. I'm Lloydie.

Lloydie James Lloyd: One of the conversations I've had several times recently is about stage fright. It's something I had years ago and it's something people have mentioned in relation to returning to the stage of the pandemic. 

This episode is taking a turn I didn't expect for a number of reasons. It's certainly a less diverse set of voices than I usually have. And it's been one of the episodes where I've found it harder to find guests and I totally get why. I'm incredibly grateful to the people I've spoken to about this, partly because they've been so incredibly honest and also because I hope them talking might be helpful to others. 

This episode has also been a rather personal one, for reasons I'll go into a bit later. And just before we start, if you're experiencing any sort of anxiety in relation to going on stage, do talk to somebody about it. I hope this podcast is helpful. But please remember, if you need advice on your specific situation, do you see a professional.

Luke Benson: I'm Luke Benson. I am an Irish improviser. I've been doing improv for about six or seven years. I'm a member of the Mob Theatre inside in Dublin. And I set up what used to be The Tight Rope, which was like a bi-weekly improv show before all this. Yes. And I do a podcast with Mark Cantan called Look What's After Happening. Yeah. So, check that out if you can.

Lloydie: So, we got chatting on Twitter about stage fright and not feeling – Like some people are not feeling incredibly confident about going back to improv after a year away from being on stage. Other people just have it as a recurring thing. Where are you at with it at the moment?

Luke: So, I'm somebody who has always kind of suffered with stage fright. So, that's kind of my low level, always-in-the-background feeling. I was grand in school, like I was somebody who really enjoyed reading out in school and doing the musicals and the plays and stuff that happened at school, but then somewhere around 16 or 17, I got more self-conscious and I began to be more aware of what I was saying when I was reading out in class or doing presentations and stuff. And I started to get nervous in front of crowds. 

And there were like three or four different instances where my throat would sort of get scratchy and I get really that shaky voice. 

And I slowly started to, like, move away from doing any of that sort of stuff in like the end of secondary school and going into college. 

And it got to the point where, like I started to avoid all types of presentations, speaking arrangements, even meeting new people in college situations, I was avoiding all that sort of stuff. And I looked to improv as a method of kind of battling that. 

It got to the point where I realized that this fear was guiding my decisions; I was choosing college courses based on it, I was not going for jobs because the job interview might require a presentation, I stepped away from captaincy in like my sports teams, because I might at the end of the year, if we win, which we never did, but if we win, I might have to do a speech. So, I would avoid any of those sorts of roles where I would have to do any sort of public speaking. 

And it came to a head where I just – I wasn't able to attend college. I was so nervous talking to my college – like the new college friends. And I just had to do something about it because it hit this kind of critical mass where it was either I just don't do anything anymore and I just find a way to avoid any sort of interactions or I have to battle this thing. So, I started to try and fight back against this anxiety and this the stage fright.

Lloydie: And how did you manage that?

Luke: I started off with some therapy. I did some like ACT, which kind of is commitment therapy, which basically forces you to do things that you find a little uncomfortable. So, I would start small. I would start really, really small; like talking to people in shops. So, I'd have to like go in, like once a day, I had to go into a shop and just talk to somebody I didn't know; ask them where the eggs are. You know that sort of thing? Like really simple things. Or interact with someone on public transport. And they were like little steps. 

And then I got to the point where I was like, “Okay. Well, I'm going to have to try and face this fear of the public speaking.” So, I Googled “Toastmasters” because I knew of Toastmasters, which was this group of people who, if you don't know, sort of come together and practice presentations. It's usually for like for people in the corporate world to sort of improve on their presentation skills. 

And a mutual friend of ours, Neal Curran, had the foresight to stick his improv classes, like a sponsored ad, under Toastmasters. And up came improv. And it had just a poster of like, “Hey, do you like performing? Do you want to have some fun, build confidence and work on your public speaking skills?” And I was like, “Yeah, that all sounds super. That sounds great. I'll do this. This sounds much more fun – No offense to Toastmasters – but it sounded much more fun than Toastmasters. 

And yeah, so I signed up for his class. And I did it with this – Not to be too graphic – but like the sweatiest hands; like it was in a flop sweat at the thought of having to do this. But I did. I tried to bring in that commitment idea of, “Well, decide you're going to do this, click the button, and then just don't think about it. You've committed.”

Lloydie: Luke has gone from being someone scared of public speaking to being someone on stage and on podcasts regularly. So, I wondered; what did he find most helpful to him getting over his stage fright?

Luke: Three things that I've really found helped me over the years were committing to it. So, if you commit to something, don't give yourself the option to sort of back out. Now, though your models may vary on this, but I've found it works for me to just make the decision and go through with it. 

The other thing is like see through it. So, very often when I was worried about a show, I would see the show as the end point of my day, of the week, of the month; like it ended at that performance. So, everything in my future was leading towards that. 

But in reality, it was going to be 30 minutes of my time and then time will continue. By that evening, you're going to be having drinks with your friends or you might go home and watch TV; like there is life after that event. And sometimes, I find it really difficult to see past the thing that was giving me all that stress. So, I just know that life isn't going to end. One way or the other, it will continue on. 

And the final thing is, and it's more from a performance point of view, if you find yourself nervous right before you go on and you think, “God, I can't do this”, just try and focus on your other performers. Just be the most attentive listener to what your other improvisers, what your troupe mates are doing or saying and react, even if it's not verbally, even if you feel like you can't speak, react physically or react with a noise or a sound. 

Really just try and support what they're doing rather than thinking you have to be funny or you have to have something great to say. You don't. You can be you can be a tree. Like if there's somebody walking through a forest, you can be the most incredible tree, the most committed tree. And that will serve a purpose in the show. 

And I’ve found that by taking the focus out of myself and putting it on to my teammates, that I'm a little bit more out of my head because I'm like, “What does this person want?” It's almost like a little mystery to solve, “What does this person wants? What are they trying to say to me?” and then I try and respond honestly. 

They are three things that I've found have been really helpful. So, just commit to it; know that it's not the end, like see through it; and like focus on others. And hopefully, that will help you battle some of the things that you're feeling before the shows. 

Lloydie: One person whose stage fright I remember witnessing was that of East Midlands improviser, Neil Munro. When he found out I was making this episode, he volunteered to talk about how his stage fright had manifested itself.

Neil Munro: It's a curious one in that my experience of stage fright has, from the past, be film, not necessarily improv, but from actual play performances. But they will be minor things like just before going on. And the w ay I would potentially handle it would be just to relax and sort of say to myself. 

Literally, I remember doing a performance of Little Shop of Horrors when I was at school, and not having really stage fright, but literally just dozing for like ten seconds before we went on and such. And I chilled out massively. But that was it. I never had anything there. 

When you sort of put out a message asking if anyone has been in stage fright, and I was thinking of improv, there was one time where I experienced it that I didn't realise it was essentially a form of stage fright or what was at all. I was very confused by it. 

It was when you and I were in rehearsal for a show and I came in, sort of, I think it was the last person to arrive just because I'd been busy that day. So, I'd been busy with work and stuff like that anyway. And there was other things going on in my life at the time as well. 

And I came in and we did some warm ups, and I did stuff in there, but I don't think I was engaging that much in those warm ups. And then we did a show on food. We did a couple of shows on foods, and I pretty much never came on stage. I just didn't know what I was doing; I was watching, I was observing, I was enjoying what I was seeing, but my mind literally couldn't come with anything to interact with my friends essentially in front of me. 

And I would imagine it may have been yourself and a few other people. There were a few times where you tried to involve me in a very gentle way. 

Lloydie: I hate seeing a fellow player struggle. But when Neil realised it was the stress in his life that was causing his stage fright, it changed things for him.

Neil: You did a musical drop-in session once and you said, “I don't know if we're going to do any more of this” and stuff like that. And I came along to that. And I hadn't performed for ages at all. I'd not been to no jam, probably in over a year, if not longer. 

And I came along to that and I really enjoyed myself; like at the end – And the reason I mentioned it was there was always this anxiety of, “I've not done any performance for a long time.” So, because like after like the end of 2016, 2017, like I started getting back on my feet in general in 2017 because I started realizing, “Oh, I had been suffering stress and anxiety” and such like about probably May time, 2017, I began to realise that it was stress because other things like low blood pressure that I was sometimes experiencing, I looked up and I went, “Oh, this could be a situation of stress.” 

So, I began to realise from that point, “Okay, definitely a physical symptom” and stuff like that. I then learnt what to spot in stress headaches. So, I went, “Oh, I've been experiencing that a lot over the last year” and stuff like that. So, it was all those sorts of things. 

But going back to this, this was the first time I'd gone and performed. And it went well. And I remember, afterwards, you said, “Oh, that was really good.” And I remember feeling like an absolute asshole, in a way, because, like you said, “Oh, that was really good, Neil” and I went, “Yes, I did a really good performance.” And I was thinking, as I was saying the words, “This sounds like this is just me and I'm not complimenting anyone else here and such.” 

I don't know if there was an element of that of maybe people looking me and going, “Hmm, okay, he's…” Like I’ve definitely said to people, “I liked what you guys were doing”, but I then was going, “Yeah, it was really good.” And if that came across, I apologize to anyone and such.

Lloydie: And by the way, just, you know, yeah, he was really good. 

And now it's honesty time for me, and I promised myself I'd be honest. I've had two bouts of stage fright during this pandemic. Both have been pretty weird to me. Usually, I don't get stage fright in improv. It's something that I associate with scripted shows because scripted shows, well, there's a way it should be done, whereas an improv, surely, I'm free. But yet the stage fright has emerged. 

A few weeks ago, Susan Messing was a guest on this podcast in the episode where we featured people who thought about not going back to improv after the pandemic. 

One piece you didn't hear with Susan make me start recording again after we'd finished. And she insisted that I run this at some point. So, here it goes. 

It's not about me.

Susan: I don't care that it's about you. Okay, we're back. And the reason we're back is I'm forcing Lloydie to talk about himself with this. And it's interesting because as what a giving human being Lloydie is, he's like, “Yes, it's my podcast, but this isn't about me.” Yes, it is. So, I am curious now for you to continue what you just dropped.

Lloydie: Okay, this is the most Susan move ever. But I was just saying that I've known throughout that I will go back to improv. 

Susan: Yes. 

Lloydie: Because in the first month to two months, it's like, “Oh, this probably won't last long. We'll book some gigs for later in the year.” And as we've gone through, whilst I've spoken to people who are kind of questioning whether they'll go back because they've re-evaluated their lives, as so many of us have in the pandemic, the creeping thing I felt is a feeling of, “Oh my God, after I've not done improv for so long, am I going to be completely shit? There's all these people doing it on Zoom like night after night after night. I've not been doing that.” 

Susan: No. 

Lloydie: I thought little bit, but I really haven't been performing. I've done like three online shows, maybe, maybe four in a year.

Susan: Let me tell you something. May I interject for this part, because there is that concern. I did a scene with Brie Watson four weeks ago. That was my first show. It really is just talking on Zoom, but it's improv. And then I did a little bit with Jill {indistinct 16:17} for her show, and then I did The Assembly is opening up in South Africa, so they put me with {crosstalk 16:22}.

Lloydie: Yeah, with Paul. Yeah. 

Susan: And it's a different thing, because I am a visceral and physical improviser, but there are visual cues and I could see where magic could happen, and did in little bits and pieces, because for me magic is discovery of like “Shut up, there was a lean cuisine in every scene. How that come back?” Knowing fully well that I did it, but I didn't know that I did it; that kind of weirdness. 

And that although for me it's a stop gap measure, I was surprised to know that I was still improvising, that I wasn't worried about, “Is this going to be good or bad, because there's already a weird film on Zoom anyway?” 

Yes, some people are doing it again and again and again. But sometimes, maybe when you're just enjoying being a human being, you actually have something to talk about. Do you know what I mean? Like you can't – I am hoping for you that there is that feeling of riding a bike and that you get back on the bike and you're like, “Oh my God, the scenery so lovely. Oh, silly me, I'm riding a bike again.” 

I really do believe that we keep thinking that we have to keep these muscles pushing. But I wonder if that came from somebody still needing – How dare I say this as a teacher – a revenue stream. 

I have said to people in my classes, I said, “I don't care if I never get to teach again because I gave you some information that made you feel so good about yourself that your work just went to the stratosphere and that you just don't need me. I don't care if my revenue stream stops.” 

Like I really, I mean, I do and I don't. I do because I think there's still always going to be people coming into this. But I wish you, for you, that you will trust yourself, that everything you've ever done has gotten you to this place of simply going, “Oh, how refreshing and delightful and awesome to be improvising again” versus the conversation of, “I hope I don't fuck up this because it's been so long.” 

I'm going to invite you to re -frame that Lloydie, big time. 

Lloydie: Invitation accepted. I do need to reframe but the final part of this is more tricky for me. Earlier this year, I developed sudden hearing loss in my left ear. In the last 10 weeks, I've lost about a third of my hearing in the left ear; no cause known, no known treatment. A consultant has said rather bluntly, actually, that is not likely to come back. It happens to thousands of people a year, it seems. 

At this stage, I have no idea how this will impact me on stage, especially as a musical improviser, but I hope somehow that it won't be too tricky. But it has added to the weight on my mind about what that first show back in real life is going to be like. And I don't like admitting I'm scared every bit as much as I don't like making this podcast about me. 

Next time… on The Improv Chronicle Podcast.

When improv means business. What does improv give to the corporate world and how is it benefiting workplaces even during or maybe especially during the pandemic? Get involved and email your perspective to newsdesk@improvchronicle.com. 

The Improv Chronicle podcast is produced and hosted by me, Lloydie James Lloyd.  There's now a newsletter to go with this podcast. It comes out on the weeks when we don't release an episode. Sign up and get the world of improv in your inbox when you go to improvchronicle.com