Just get over it…
Recently, I was in a class with some seasoned performers, when one of them said: “I should be over audition anxiety by now.” And my heart sank. Because I heard what they didn’t say: “What I’m feeling is wrong.” “What’s wrong with me that can’t I just get over it?” I heard the familiar refrain of The Shame and Blame Spiral.
Now, setting this person’s individual experience aside, audition anxiety is universal. It happens to us all at some point in our careers, so this month let’s unpack it a little.
What is audition anxiety?
Audition anxiety is anticipatory fear, dread, and/or worry around auditions. When we experience it, we feel pressure, restlessness, inability to slow down, and a lot of sympathetic activation. It is a completely normal response to stressful situations. And auditions are, and always will be, stressful!
If this is the job that is going to pay our rent for the month (or year), give us access to healthcare, let us cross a dream role off our bucket list… then yeah, audition anxiety is a normal response!
It’s normal, we just don’t like it.
And who would?! It’s uncomfortable, pulls us out of character, makes us go up on our lines, makes our heart race, or freezes us up entirely. It can make us look “unprofessional.”
Look, there is a lot of pressure on us artists to be “professional,” yet that does not mean we never experience anxiety. Let me hammer this home: “Professional” is not the absence of anxiety.
Not only is audition anxiety a normal response, but anxiety in general is very common for all artists. We artists experience mental health challenges at a higher rate than the general population — including anxiety. Which makes sense when we think about it!
Performing requires sympathetic activation and adrenaline; we mobilize towards the material, the character, the story. And when we couple that with the fact that we are biologically predisposed to over respond to stress, audition anxiety is a predictable result.
So what can we do?
First off, we can get good at understanding acute (vs chronic) stress, like by diving into this post. Auditions are acute stressors. And when we’re building awareness, auditions are a great testing ground to understand our own stress response cycle.
What are our first cues we’re feeling audition anxiety? Does it make sense for our given circumstances? Are we at a 15 when a 7 will do? What tool or practice can we bring in to help lessen or shift the response?
Next up, we can redefine “professional” to include audition anxiety. When we see it as part and parcel of being a professional performer, audition anxiety stops being something we avoid at all costs. We normalize it, decreasing shame. Then we can take back all that time and energy we used to spend getting rid of it or beating ourselves up, and put that back into our craft.
The point of using our tools is not to push through or push aside our audition anxiety, but to reorient to safety and comfort enough to reconnect to the character or story. When we can find safety and comfort even in the throes of audition anxiety, it stops getting in the way of our work.
Over time, this builds self-trust; audition anxiety won’t derail our performance. It stops being something we need to “get over,” and starts being something we can work with. That’s when we can start to use our audition anxiety to actually help our performance.
A great way to practice this is in low stakes environments where we can build some muscle memory, such as class, working with our coaches, self-tapes, cabarets… and even through exercise! Exercise can mimic sympathetic activation, so try out our tools next HIIT class.
This practice takes time. Longer than most of us would like, my impatient self included. Artists are trained to push through discomfort, so centering comfort and safety may feel like a completely foreign way of working. And just like we go to our coaches with new material, we can also seek professional help with this.
Lastly, we can ask ourselves over and over again: What if it’s not me?
One of my biggest pet peeves is when we artists internalize what we have no control over. This is not the same industry as it was ten, or even five years ago. There are less productions, funding cuts nationwide, so many articles about how Broadway, the musical, the arts are in trouble…
Why do we think this doesn’t impact us when we seek work?
Our audition anxiety is there for a very good reason, it is not a personal failing.
Our own self-actualization, while vital, will not alone fix what is a system-wide issue. We will have to work collectively on collective issues we want to change (like auditioning). In the meantime, we can relieve ourselves of a bit of that shame by not internalizing what is outside of our control.
Audition anxiety is not something to just get over. It is a given circumstance of being an artist. How we learn to work with this given circumstance is up to us.
If you’d like some individual attention on your audition anxiety, reach out to me here.