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Pre-Monday

by Scott Allen Luke, Managing Director of Rubicon Theatre Project

As we approach the reading on Monday, it’s interesting that even for a one-night-only engagement, performance anxiety can take over.  Any actor can attest to the realness of performance anxiety.  Even the comfort of having the script in your hand during a reading doesn’t always make a difference.  It comes down to ego.  A lot of people get confused when I say ego, so let me explain.  Technically, ego isn’t that which makes us arrogant or overconfident.  Ego is the part of our brain that keeps the ID and the Superego in check.  Ego is the part of our brain that constantly surveys the situation we’re in and our surroundings.  Our own private watchdog, if you will. 

By nature, all humans want to be liked, want to be accepted.  And it is this ego that causes performance anxiety.  Sure it’s easy enough to take risks in rehearsal when you’re working with a director and several other actors you trust and who understand the process.  But it instantly becomes more difficult once you get in front of a bunch of people you don’t know.  What happens a lot (trust me, I’ve seen it myself) is that an actor will be brilliant in rehearsals, but then they flat-line come performance time.  Their ego causes them to stifle their impulses (even the ones they know are right) for fear that the audience may not find a funny part funny, or that the audience will be silently judging the actor for looking stupid or ridiculous.  With developing a new play, I think this anxiety holds true for the producer and playwright as well.  As the Managing Director of Rubicon Theatre Project, I can say that we are interested in parlaying this reading into a full production.  This workshop performance is only the tip of the iceberg in the grand scheme of a production.  We want the audience to enjoy, and what’s more, support, the work we have put our “blood, sweat and tears” into.  After all, we wouldn’t be showing you this work if we didn’t believe it to be worthy of your attendance, right?  And it is the subconscious self-doubt that we artists inevitably deal with from time to time; afraid that our story won’t be accepted readily by you, the audience.  I guess we’ll see how things go on Monday.