You know how high-strung the baby gets after a performance – Gypsy
Though in my case, it’s not after the performance, it’s before the performance.
It’s been that way ever since I was a kid. Despite the fact that I know I know my stuff, that I know I have a voice that can fill a theatre (with or without a mic) and that never once has my lyric or musical memory let me down…the day of a performance? I am a nervous wreck. I am, in fact, something even beyond a nervous wreck. I won’t eat, I hardly speak to anyone, I’m shaky and usually sick to my stomach.
My parents, bless their hearts, have put up with this ever since I first shuffled across the stage in tiny tiny tap shoes at age three. My dad has always been the best at dealing with it…especially now that I’m older. He’s turned it into something of a joke, he’ll look at his watch and almost be able to time my symptoms to the minute. But he also knows me better than anyone, he knows that when I step out onto that stage and open my mouth for the first bar, I’m enveloped by an all-encompassing kind of calm. The nerves are still there, but they become an energy source instead of a drain.
Shaughnessy’s *always* sick the day of a performance, she always has been, chill…she’ll be fine.
So it was today. I was exhausted, I was snappy with people on the team (for which I deeply apologize) and I was nearly collapsing with nerves in the wings. The truth was, I had never performed this chart before, I’d only read it through twice, there were massive parts of it (including a killer key change in the middle) that I was only tentative of…and more importantly than all that, I hadn’t been in front of an audience – a real live, theatrical audience, in three years.
Mid-afternoon found me sitting cross legged in front of my cabin mirror, carefully applying the type of stage make-up that only works when its just you and a piano player – not heavy like character make-up, not light like every day wear (though eventually that’s what it fades to), with a skirt of easter yellow pooling on the floor around me. The right costume can wear like confidence, and I needed confidence badly.
The show lounge had been transformed into a palm court cabaret, with tables right on the stage and live palm trees surrounding the piano, and next to the piano was a single high three-legged stool. I walked to that stool with every strand of nerves in my body strung tight, but then the cruise director gave me a smile, hit the first chord, and I felt myself settle back into place and the notes came out just like they should. This was the song my mum used to sing to me when I was little, and we could never get through it without crying, that was the hardest part of the chart (aside from having never performed it before), getting through it without thinking of home and shedding a tear.
But the cruise director made it easy. Amazing actually. As my father will attest, I have true singer’s habits with my voice: I bend, a back phrase, I mess with timing – this drives most pianists nuts, but say what you will about our cruise director he is an amazing piano player –I’ve not worked with someone so smooth in a long long time.
I glitched once on the key-change, but that was more of a cue mistake (on my part) than anything, and it’s not that easily noticeable.
Standing in the wings after the performance, watching the rest of the show on the backstage monitors, I listened to the cruise director talk about how the last song in his repertoire was for his mother, who had supported and inspired him for so long. Oddly, his speech didn’t make me think about my mum – though I obviously think about her often – no, it made me think of my dad.
Don’t push her so hard, she’s just a kid…
My mum used to say to him all the time.
She has a gift, she’s got an amazing gift, I just want to help her get through that door
Really? It’s because of my dad – and the fact that he always insisted on pushing me so damn hard….that I know how to ‘roller-skate’.