I’ve felt drawn to the stage ever since I was a child. Theater was a place I could live out the wildest of my fantasies. I could have bright lights on my face and the most ostenatious costumes on, and I would be happy. No one could contain me from singing the most off-key version of any song, preferably from Wicked (I hadn’t been told I needed voice lessons at this point). I pretended I was a Rockette, a ballerina, a tap dancer. The stage and the shows were places I felt safe.
This was the bright, strawberry-blonde haired girl who ALWAYS was picked to play the witch, and when she could, cast herself either as Hermione, or as the Justice of Peace in a wedding gone wrong.
Somewhere between this and more recent shows, I became afraid of the stage. I still loved it, it still gave me the warm familiar feeling; the one you get when cozy up underneath your favorite blanket. But the magic I loved to create, the easiness of stepping into a role and allowing it to bring me out of everything else; was missing. I couldn’t ignore everyone around me, I suddenly was overwhelmingly aware that everyone could, and probably did, have an opinion about my performance, my interpretation. I could have the smallest role on stage, and I was so terrified that my whole cast would be so embarrassed about having me on their stage.
Our directors constantly encouraged us to add more personality, add more depth to our characters, especially if we were ensemble. I was used to finding this easy. But I was too scared to add any option, to try anything. I barely even smiled when we ran our dances. They were stiff, and I knew I was lacking, but I thought it was better to give minimum effort than to try too hard and look stupid.
One day, as we approached the show, one of my directors called me out into the hallway. She complimented, as she had before, my ability to remind others of their choreography, my own ability to do the moves, but expressed concern that she thought I had more to give. The dreaded compliment sandwich. But she ended this with something I’m sure she thought of on the spot, but something that sticks with me so profoundly today. She pleaded for me to try something new, saying, “CJ, you’ve got to go out there and play. Play with the people and the objects and the story that you’re part of. Play like you’re a little kid on the playground again and dig and dig and create the magic you want everyone to see.”
By pulling me aside, she let me know that she saw me. I mattered, I was noticed. And though I was terrified of messing up, I discovered I couldn’t fathom going through the show and not trying at all.
I’ve heard this advice over and over again, adults pushing me more and more to release the fear of messing up on stage. Once you hear it from three directors, you know you have to make some drastic changes. Get louder, move your face more, get physical, belt that note. When I was cast as Donna in a production of Mamma Mia, with many girls my junior, I started taking more risks. Many of them seemed fearless and I saw this as my now or never moment. I could love the stage from my seat in the audience, which was reflective of the effort I was putting in at that point, or I could relinquish the amount of power I gave to the fear of messing up. So what if I forgot a line in rehearsal, so what if I had no formal dance training. I had passion and clearly some talent, and I needed to use that.
From there, I rediscovered why I love to be on stage, and I found that I could be both mature and playful, and that these were assets to my performance. I know I’m hard on myself, and therefore it’s easy to let the little errors that are only noticeable to me ruin my vibe for the night. But I also know that the best feeling is to engage with the audience: when they’re clapping for you, and you’re proud of yourself, when they’re laughing and you are too. If I remained so rigid and so hellbent on being perfect, no one would be able to connect with me.
In Beauty and Beast last year, I leaned all the way in to “playing” with our Gaston number. It’s always been a favorite of mine, and had arguably the best choreography of any number in the show. We worked so hard to make the dance so perfect that all of the before and after, all of the interactions needed to be at the level of play of this drinking song. Every night, we’d laugh and make up stories about our characters, the village, whatever. Our mics’ were off, no one knew what we were saying, but it was a moment for us that they could pick up on. At the end of the song, I was always supposed to move from dancing with my partner on a bench, up to dancing on a table. However, at our second performance, the weight distribution was off, and when my partner stepped off of the bench to go to his final spot, the bench tipped and threw me into the air. When I landed, I had no idea who and if anyone had seen it, apart from the two people adjacent to me laughing as they held their goblets up and tried to assess whether I was at all injured. The song was over, and I needed to do something, give my salute. So, I just raised my glass and my feet in the air, and pretended I was the best drunkard in the tavern. I broke my shoe, the table, and everyone was so concerned as to whether I was okay, but I was just so happy, not only because I messed up and kept going, but because I wasn’t afraid at all. Nothing mattered except that I had had the most fun of anyone on that stage on that night.
The advice that encouraged me to play like a child was super important. It reminded me that theater is supposed to be a community, somewhere that everyone can be free to express themselves, and that it’s a collaborative experience. I can’t rely on my castmates to carry the whole show, and I can’t, myself, ruin the entire thing alone. I needed to dig and use the fear of doing something wrong to allow myself to do something right. Without my director trying to ascertain some emotion out of me and talking with me one-on-one, I really don’t know if I would have continued doing theater. I would’ve continued to feel like a hindrance to the potential of show and allowed myself to shrink in confidence more than I already had, and I don’t know where that would’ve left me. Playing though, letting yourself use the people around you as fuel and just imagining yourself as the carefree child on playground is essential to my success.