Salt Touched

Since I was just only “yay-high to a ballet barre” I’ve gotten stage fright. Horrific, crippling stage fright. I know I’m talented, though it took me a long time to realize that I do know it. But…getting up there? Getting up there is hard.

Especially when the people that I’m getting up in front of are visible. I know that sounds foolish, but most performers will tell you something similar, if you can’t see the crowd it’s a lot easier to pretend the crowd isn’t there. If you’re on a stage under a pin-spot the audience is lost in the blackness beyond the fourth wall and you can easily pretend that you’re singing to an empty house. But when you’re in a well lit room and the audience is fully visible and all looking eagerly you at you expecting something fantastic? That gets difficult.

Tonight was the Music Walk Mash-up, where all the bands play in different venues and everything is all on one deck; the idea being that since there’s no show in the show lounge, people can drift from venue to venue instead, something like a festival. A few days ago, one of our cast members asked if I wanted to join them to sing at the piano bar, I – at the time – told them I would love to but “it depends”, then the piano bar entertainer asked me directly, and then he told everyone else I had already said yes. So…doing it I was…

And at the beginning of my dinner shift, the super-mutant butterflies launched in my tummy.

Amras kept telling me all day that I had nothing to worry about, that my reputation had built itself so that these people already knew I was going ot be good because they believed it to be so, even though a great many of them have never heard me sing. But knowing that logically, just like knowing that I’ve performed Cabaret so often that I could do it in my sleep, is quite different from actually acting on it; on the flagship one of my colleagues told me that the stage fright never goes away, and that what you had to do was reach out and shake it’s hand and look it in the eye and thank it for what it gives you…

And then, when I get up there, the faithful light-switch clicks on, and I remember that I do know how to do this.

I had to work my shift, so that meant I went last in the first set. With all the others doing three songs each and my only being slated to perform one, I didn’t so much mind going last; except that my desk is across the hall from the lounge where the performances were happening and listening to everyone else does not do wonders for my nerves. I almost just let Jamm take a break without bothering to step on stage. But my feet dutifully took me to the behind the piano where he could see me…before I took up my space against the wall to wait for my turn.

Then I looked to my left to see a small throng of boys in black and one girl in one. Amras had brought the band.

Seriously? You brought the guys?

No idea what you’re talking about

He told me later that the band had actually brought itself, and he just followed them, since he’s the last to pack up his gear on breaks. It means a lot to me to realize that I’ve actually developed enough of a support network here that they would give up their break time to come and hear me without even being asked to. That was a cool moment.

Jamm unexpectedly rolled the end of his song into his introduction of me, which left me somewhat unsure how to react (what do you say when someone introduces you as “the moment you’ve all been waiting for,”?); but that was also when I realized something that truly shocked me :there were people who had come to this whole cabaret evening just to hear me.

It’s an odd thing, standing there looking at that sea of faces. The way it breaks down in things like this on board: strangers in front of you, friends lining the wall to your right. You can feel the support coming from that wall, and you can feel the anticipation coming from the strangers. It’s a odd place to be in those crosshairs.

That’s also when the nerves disappeared; I looked over my shoulder to the pianist,

Let’s do this shall we?

And then I don’t remember the next two or three minutes, except milking the power note for everything it was worth which is always good for applause and a laugh because you ask for those applause.

You’re puttin’ all of them back there to shame Shaughnessy, you know that right.

Nah, they put me to shame every day.

One more minute for you and then back to the desk you go!

Ha ha! Very funny!

And much to my intense surprise – because you always hope but you never know – people sprang to their feet at the end. I have not received a standing ovation in years, I had almost completely forgotten what that felt like. The noise was much louder than I remember such things being, probably because it’s been so long since it was directed at me.

Then I was able to make out one word in the din, one word that got stronger and stronger…

ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE!

In the back of my mind was a little voice whispering ‘aren’t you glad you had a backup?’, I looked down and moved the mic away so that only the pianist could hear me.

You know ‘What I Did for Love’

Ye-ah….oh wait, do you know Dance Ten Looks Three?

Yes! But…

Er, yeah you’re right, that might get us in trouble. Stick with the ballad

It’s one thing to do a power number that you’ve rehearsed millions of times and sung in all sorts of different contexts. I can sing Cabaret with my eyes closed so to speak, but What I Did For Love I haven’t sung in front of an audience in at least a year and a half. I’ll admit to spending half the time worrying whether or not we’d chosen the wrong key, but apparently I was the only one. The thing about me and that song is that I don’t sing it the way most people expect it to be sung. It’s a love song yes, but it’s not a traditional love song, because it’s not about traditional love…

…in the context of the original show – not the movie – What I Did For Love is slotted in right after Paul drops with his knee injury. In the movie, it’s at the point where Cassie and Zach share a stricken look that says they clearly know that they have just watched a career end, that Paul will never dance again. As he is carried off the stage, Zach asks the other auditioners what they would do if they were suddenly unable to dance, how would they feel. It is Marlyis, the nervous young lady who was always told she would amount to nothing, who is happy just to say she danced on broadway because it makes her ‘something’, steps forward and answers for all of them. What I Did For Love is her answer…

Perhaps it means more to me because I can relate to that sentiment.

One of the cast members – the same one who had initially asked me to sing – said to me later that as soon as I stepped up and pulled the mic out of its stand and held on to the chord, he knew he was seeing a side of me that he hadn’t seen before.

Not really. You were just seeing me. I don’t get to do it very often.

This is what you should be doing Shaughnessy, this is what you need to be doing.

I know, but no one ever offers me the chance. I’m always the wrong height the wrong weight the wrong…something.

Then they’re idiots, don’t listen to them. This is where you belong.

And perhaps my mother’s right, perhaps the day my stage fright leaves me is the day that I’ve lost my edge. For right now, I am so desperately grateful that that magic light switch still clicks on…and reminds me that yes, this is still where I’m supposed to be.