Forest~Joyce

Stage Fright

Have you ever stood on stage, looking down at the audience who are all looking at you and then your mind goes blank. Worse thing is that you have prepared whatever you are on stage for and you knew that you can easily do it anywhere else except on a stage where there are many eyes are on you.

Or maybe you are fine with people looking at you but not people who are going to be judging you. Being on stage with a panel of judges is different from being on stage with normal audiences.

The purpose of being on stage is also a factor to consider. Sometimes, when you are up on stage for fun, you will not have stage fright. But if you are up there for something formal, or a competition, your heart will beat faster than usual, you will be nervous and you will end up not performing to expectations.

I remembered I was in Primary 3 when I was chosen to represent my class for a Chinese storytelling competition. I stayed back for a few times every week to rehearse with my teacher. When it was time for me to stand up on the stage to tell the story which I knew by heart, my mind went blank. I don’t see how I can’t do it when the rest are ok. But when I saw the hundreds of people sitting in front of the stage looking at me, I just can’t speak out loud. I ended up mumbling and stumbling on my lines. For this, I blame it on my classmate. We were both shortlisted by our teacher for the competition, but he got out of it by purposely reading the story badly while I read it as how I would as usual. I was too naïve at that time. If I knew, I would anyhow read the story so that my teacher won’t choose me.

Although that was not my first time on stage, it was my first stage fright experience. It’s because I am up alone on that big stage for a competition, which cause me to be nervous and forgot my lines.

After that, I have been on stage for many other reasons, performance etc. But I did not feel nervous as I was not along on that bloody stage.

When it comes to poly and my course requires many individual presentations, mostly in front of the camera, that nervous feeling came back. During my very first individual presentation in poly, I was really nervous and speak really fast. One good thing is that I did not forget my lines, simply because I did not prepare a script. I did impromptu instead as I have PowerPoint slides to refer to. The rest of the presentations I had after went decently well. There’s another one which is something like news reporting in front of the camera and you have to hold a mike and say your script without looking at it. I managed to memorize my script and finished off that presentation with just a few stumbles.

I thought that I have finally managed to cure myself of stage fright but no. There’s this presentation which it’s a pair work presentation. We are supposed to be emcee and we have scripts to read off. However, half way through the presentation, I actually burst out laughing. Instead of being nervous, I burst out laughing and can’t stop. Well, it’s partially because we had some classmates to pretend to be the Guest of Honors.

Till now, after many presentations and stage experience, I still feel nervous facing an audience be it only 1 person. But I am proud to say that no matter how nervous I still am, I will no longer forget my lines.

What about you? Have you experience stage fright before in any stage of your life? Or are you born to be on stage? If you have, have you managed to cure yourself out of stage fright already?

Do share your views with me~~~ XD

P.S: Do suggests topics for next month too~~ XD