It’s minutes before lights up on Westview’s stage. As the audience sits patiently in their seats, waiting for the curtain to lift, they never catch the shaking hands, nervous pacing, or deep breaths that happen behind the curtains. For many performers, the hardest part of performing is the moment right before stepping onstage in front of hundreds of watching eyes. This is stage fright. According to a 2013 National Institute of Mental Health study, over 77% of the general population deal with the fear of public speaking. However, performers often deal with stage fright alongside their passion.
Harshini Patted (12), president of Westview Theatre Company (WVTC), said she battled tremendous nerves leading up to her first performance with WVTC as a freshman without any prior theater experience.
“I definitely think that Westview has one of the biggest audiences that I’ve faced,” Patted said. “I grew up doing dance, [but] it was very different because the eyes were never really on you. So, freshman year, I was crashing out. It was tech week, and I was like, ‘I’m not ready. I’ve never done this before.’ And I remember, [WVTC vice president] Emma [Olsen (12)] told me, ‘I think you’re gonna do amazing. Don’t even worry.’ And that cut all the worrying [out] of me.”
In Patted’s four years as a part of the theatre company, she has participated countless times in Westview’s main pre-show tradition, ‘Feel So Good.’ Pre-show routines are designed to warm up actors while also helping release their stress.
“Each theater, every single school you’ll go to, they have their own traditions,” Patted said. “Westview specifically [has] ‘Feel So Good,’ a thing to increase energy and take those nerves out. So we’re all in a circle, and one [person], usually a senior, because they have a lot of experience to draw from, goes into the circle, and they tell a story about silly, funny, sometimes bad things that happen in theater. We turn those [stories] into a moment to laugh because all of those moments [are in the] past. You’re laughing about it because, in reality, it’s not that deep. It’s us being together, which really matters and entangles all of that into what our experience is.”
Malia Meng (10) has been performing in dance and theater since she was 4 years old. Despite her extensive experience, she has always struggled with pre-performance anxiety. By putting less thought into what people think of her over time, Meng has begun to overcome her intense stage fright.
“Back then, I’d felt [stage fright] from the first rehearsal,” Meng said. “I’d [think], ‘Okay, I have to get the step down, because if I mess up in front of the audience, it’ll be super embarrassing.’ I [would] be nervous, even just going to rehearsal or going to auditions, I’d start crying because I was so nervous. Now, when I audition, I don’t really care. If I get [a part], I get it, and if I don’t, I don’t. What’s done is done.”
Meng said she now experiences most of her stage fright right before performing. She uses different methods to cope with anxiety, such as breathing techniques and engaging with other performers.
“Box breathing is [something that] actually helps me,” Meng said. “You inhale through your nose for four seconds, you hold your breath for four seconds, and then you exhale for four seconds, and then you breathe normally for four seconds. And just practice more. Especially if I’m doing a dance, I’ll run the steps in my head first. What helps me [also] is hyping other people up when we have performances together. Because I feel once you talk to people and they’re also nervous, it makes you feel less alone and less like, ‘I’m all by myself in this, [what] if I mess up, it’s all on me.’ No, it’s everybody. It’s okay.”
Sophia Sultan (11) has also been acting in theater since she was young. She said she experiences a physical reaction the moment she steps onto a stage.
“My tongue will get all dry, and I feel all of my muscles just go limp, and it’s like I can’t move,” She said. “But you have to move when you’re on stage. It’s almost like when your foot falls asleep or something, and you still have to move it, but you can’t move it because you’re so scared. People have flight, fright or freeze. I freeze. [I’m] like a deer in headlights.”
Just like actors and dancers, other performers also deal with stage fright. Sultan also performs in Westview’s Mock Trial Team, presenting arguments and giving testimonies to a courtroom full of judges and her teammates. Like when performing on stage, Sultan said her anxiety peaked during a trial.
“Freshman year for Mock Trial, we made it to the final round,” Sultan said. “I was an expert witness, so I had to give expert testimony, and it was a bunch of complex words, and I was really scared, because I [thought] ‘If I mess up, then this could cost us going to states.’ I was very rigid during that. I remember all my muscles were very tense. The way court works is no one can actually see your bottom half and you’re supposed to move [your torso] around like you’re having a conversation. I did not move that entire time.”
Sultan now uses grounding exercises before a performance or speech. These pre-show routines help her prepare mentally and assure her that the show will go well.
“I breathe in three times, and I breathe out seven times,” Sultan said. “I do this thing where you [shake out your] hands and feet, [individually, while] you count [to 10]. I do that before everything. Because somehow, I think that that’s going to stop anything that goes wrong. I try to calm myself down [as much as] I can before I get on stage, because I know if I go on stage nervous, it’ll not go well.”
Even though Patted has grown to feel comfortable onstage, she still finds herself struggling with nervousness. Over time, she said she’s learned to connect her nervousness to excitement over any upcoming performance.
“I get ‘nerve-cited,’” Patted said. “That basically means nervous [and] excited. I’m so nervous, but I turn that nervousness into excitement. I’d like to think about, ‘I’m confident that I’ve worked on this audition piece. What if I’m a part of this production?’ And I start thinking about the amazing things that’ll happen, doing those dance numbers or singing in front of an audience, or having fun tech rehearsals. I start thinking about all those possibilities, and I get nerve-cited. My nerves end up driving me to perform.”
