I'm sucking down Sucrets

There are different techniques for different stages in a production. At first it's learning your damn lines and figuring out how to connect with your fellow actresses on stage. It's breathing (which yet again I've forgotten to implement into a habit). It's knowing when to pick up a picture. When to take back a chair. But I'm finding there is another level of technique, not more or less advanced, that I need to learn. And that's show technique. The technique of acting in front of an audience b/c if you think about it, we've spent the entire run rehearsing in front of no one accept the crew. That is a very different thing than an audience. It's a different approach maybe no necessarily in what you're doing, but how you feel about what you're doing.


Some of it comes naturally, you feel the energy of a crowd and you play to it. But then if the crowd doesn't have energy, you have to still try and maintain yours. The big one for me is managing my anxiety. I learned pretty quickly that there is a solid difference between brain and body when it comes to nerves. My brain is fine. At worst it's kind of numb. That said, my body is freaking out. My neck hurts in a weird place. My voice seems to have mildly disappeared. I can't really taste the foods I'm eating. I'm not hungry at all.

So there are some things I know to do: I went to the gym. That helps. I schedule everything out so that I don't have to worry about forgetting. That helps. But I need to learn how to take this nervous energy and channel it into character. I need to focus the vibrations in my skin and morph it into my first character's frustration over wedding planning. And then morph it into a mother. And then a daughter.

This I think I can learn. The even harder thing for me will be to not second guess where I'm at. I vaguely remember this from past shows. The show opens and I think, "If only." This one I'm not yet sure how to fight. Mostly I'm making a list of how I'd approach the next show knowing what I know now. How quickly I need to learn my lines so that I can then focus on character. I probably don't spend enough time outside of rehearsals really thinking about how characters move or speak. Someone asked us about accents last night after our preview show, and I don't really do any. That made me a bit self conscious, but none of my characters have the really apparent Brooklyn/Queens or southern lilts. (I do have 7 lines of french accent and I still could have done more work on that.) So I'm worried that my characters are all the same actress with a different sweater.

So you can clearly see I haven't mastered all of these yet. Clearly. But hopefully I will have the chance to be in more things. And each one brings up new challenges. And new things to learn.