Stage Fright

I've been working as a starving screenwriter for a while now, but I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. I've got that starving part down pat.

I'm always looking for ways to improve my screenwriting skills. One of the suggestions I've read about recently is to take an acting class. The idea is that as a screenwriter I would be able to write better screenplays if I understood actors. That might be a stretch.

This made me think back to my college days when I was a member of an acting and singing troupe. When I joined the troupe, I wasn't thinking about writing screenplays. I knew I could be a great actor, except for my extreme stage fright. Well, that and the fact that I couldn't act. That's why I write screenplays now instead of acting in them. Although I keep looking for that one special character who's a bumbling actor who can't remember his lines. I could do that.

As far as the stage fright goes, it seems most illogical. Why would standing in front of a crowd cause the reaction it does? If I were confronted with a hungry lion who thought I was a tasty morsel, it would make sense to have a rapidly beating heart, sweaty palms, and high adrenaline levels. But an audience poses no threat. Why would it cause the "fight or flight" reflex? I do remember a large, hairy guy at one performance. I wouldn't have wanted to meet him in a dark alley. Wouldn't have wanted to meet him in a lighted alley for that matter.

Some scientists believe humans have two brains - a primitive brain that's responsible for survival and a higher brain responsible for reason and logic. Perhaps it's our primitive, illogical brain that causes stage fright.

It could be possible that the primitive brain interprets smiling as an act of aggression that the higher brain can't sort out. I recently saw a show on animals the other night that might shed some light on this. Several people were boating off the coast of Florida when a couple of dolphins swam up beside their boat. The people laughed and pointed at the dolphins because they thought they were smiling at them, but that wasn't the case. In the wild, if an animal shows its teeth, it's a sign of aggression, not happiness.

Perhaps with stage fright there's a conflict between our higher brains seeing people laughing as a sign of happiness, but our primitive brains interpreting it as a sign of aggression. That would explain the unreasonable "fight or flight" reaction associated with stage fright. The solution might be as simple as getting our logical brains to overcome the feelings of anxiety produced by our primitive brains.

I've almost got my stage fright under control. Now before I have to speak before a crowd, I take a deep breath, count to ten, and hope I don't mess on my shoes. So far, so good.

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