Creativity and Doing an Imperfect Job

Since I took some acting classes last year and decided I wanted to pursue it, I began to feel more and more fearful of having to present my work. I knew I would have to be brave enough to be vulnerable; I also knew I had to be fine with making mistakes publicly. I’d spent so many years hiding the desire to perform that it was too big a mental mountain to climb. (Believe me I resembled Picasso’s Weeping Woman quite a bit at this point!)

Part of this process was wrestling with the fear of not being as good in the moment as I know I can be and, then, being proven to be delusional of my own abilities. That logic has the flawed assumption that if I’m not good from the beginning I won’t be good at all, even though you can get better at most things with practice. If that’s true, then, how will I become consistently good without practising performing? If I don’t create myself opportunities to perform, how will I get to practice performing?

I heard via a friend that someone said, ‘clever crows know where the healthiest crops are by where the scarecrow is.’ In essence, to get what I wanted I had to go where there was the most resistance and cause for fear!

I saw an audition opportunity on facebook for a project called, ‘From Sonnet to Song’ (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEnCsFJY7ZaBQz_nVUgUJAg) and decided to contact the talented lady who’s been composing music for Shakespeare’s sonnets — some fifty plus of them!

The good news is that I was able to send this audition and get onto the project! I did something, even though it wasn’t perfect (there are so many things to think about when you’re self-taping!). I also was terrified of posting it on Youtube and sharing it on Facebook. So, I did exactly that.

There was more performance anxiety to come when I faced the microphone to record the sonnet. To be continued…