You stand alone onstage. The whole room is quiet. The spotlight is shining in your face.  You try to find your family in the audience, but everything in front of you is pitch black.  You feel like you’re going to faint. You open your mouth to sing, but nothing comes out. Here are some helpful tips and tricks to prevent these three problems an actor must overcome. Hopefully, you will become more confident on stage, and more confident preparing for your performance after overcoming these problems.

     First, you need to overcome stage fright. Many people who are in theater have stage fright. It is very important to conquer your fears, especially stage fright. Stage fright can increase social problems and can make it very hard to speak up for yourself. To conquer stage fright, practice by yourself in front of a mirror. Dance, sing, and act like nobody's watching (because they aren't). Do this everyday for about one week. Practicing in front of a mirror helps because you can practice your facial expressions and dances while watching yourself. When the time comes to perform, you will not doubt yourself as much and won’t hold back. Once you’ve got these steps down, you can move on.

     Next, you should gather a small group of at least one to three people. They can sit down and be your audience. Many people agree that performing in front of one to three people is the most nerve racking way to perform, so it is good to start here and get used to it. You can sing, dance, or act. It may seem very hard and awkward, but trust the process. Once you start, it will get better. Perform in front of one to three people once a week for four weeks. Hopefully by the end of this process, you will feel much more confident performing with an audience. If you don’t, you should continue performing like this for about another two weeks. 

     When many people are performing, they often hold back and give less energy, fearing other people will make fun of them if they’re being too energetic or loud. But, that is not the case. The crowd loves and enjoys when you’re very bold and have high energy. In fact, the crowd dislikes it when you aren't big and bold. They can’t hear you, and then they can’t focus on the plot of the show. You can still be a very sad and shy character by being big and bold. Instead of being quietly sad, be melodramatically sad. Once you get all of this in your head, you’re ready for the next step.

     Secondly, an actor must overcome the problem of not remembering their lines. Not remembering your lines can seriously affect your performance. It messes with your confidence, projection, and stage presence. Of course you should never push yourself too hard. Only memorize the lines your director tells you to be off book on. If you try to memorize all of your lines at once, your words will get jumbled up, and you might say the wrong lines. One way you can memorize your lines is saying them in the mirror so you can remember your facial expressions during that line.

     Another trick is to split your line up into sections. You should then say each section over and over again. Then combine some sections and say those sections over and over again. When you have finished this, combine the whole line and say it over and over again without looking at your script.

     The third way to help memorize your lines is to remember your cue lines (the line that comes before yours to cue you in) or at least the last word of it and who says it. You can highlight your que lines with a different color, which brings us to highlighting your lines. Highlighting your lines is very helpful. It helps with knowing when your lines are and where they are in the script. You will never miss a line when you’re going through your script if you highlight them. However, make sure that if you don’t highlight your lines, you don’t highlight your que lines. It could make your mind think that your cue line is your line and you could say it instead of yours.

     The last step to help you memorize your lines is saying them before bed. That way, they can soak through your brain all night long. When you wake up in the morning, you will know your lines by heart.There are many ways to practice and memorize your lines. Now that you have overcome the problem of stage fright and not memorizing your lines, you’re ready to move on.

     Last but not least, a problem that actors must overcome onstage is stage and costume malfunctions. Stage and costume malfunctions are very common in theater.  All of the answers are the same for malfunctions such as missing props, slow scene changes, broken set pieces, etc. You just need to stay calm and go with the flow. Make the audience believe that it was supposed to happen by not giving it any thought. 

     The same goes for costume malfunctions. Costume changes are very hard, especially quick changes. It does not matter if you don’t have enough time to make it out there. If you know that you’re not going to make it, just don’t change your costume. Think about it, the audience has never seen this show before, so they don't know what is supposed to happen and what isn't.Whatever the malfunction is, do not let it bring you, your performance, and the people around you down. Stage and costume malfunctions are very tricky to deal with and get over. If you get over them right away, it’s like nothing bad ever happened.

     Theater is a very fun and diverse hobby that comes with many challenges. Once you get these three things out of your system, you’re on your way to Broadway. Although there are many things that can go wrong on and offstage, you just need to let go of them. Your main priority is having a great show. Overcoming your problems and fears can lead to learning new things and experimenting with who you want to be.

-Olivia S.