Stage fright is a universal phenomenon. Almost everyone has had their own experience with stage fright. Touro Communication instructors have many anecdotes collected over the years. Each instructor has her way of addressing stage fright in class. They will tell you what the business world knows that fear of speaking in public remains the number one stumbling block for professional success.

Here are some stories from my own experience:

• A Touro administrator spoke about his “terrible” anxiety he experiences when he gets up to teach a class or talk to an audience.
• When she heard that the class was going to get up a do an impromptu speech, a Touro student of mine, sitting in the last row, dropped to the floor and crawled on her knees out of the classroom and raced down the hall.
• When a cardiologist learned that I taught public speaking, he suddenly sat up straight and looked at me, “When can I take a class from you?”
• Recently, one of my Communication students asked to speak to me privately. He said that he had jumped out of airplanes four times at 2000 feet, but would be refusing to get up to give a speech. At a private final exam with me, he gave a fine speech.
• When I was in 8^th grade in the University Of Hawaii Lab School, we had a practice teacher, Miss Saito, who was assigned to teach the typing class. From the moment, she got up in front of the room, she trembled. Her voice quavered. Her hand and arm shook visibly as she attempted to teach touch typing. We were in agony as we watched Miss Saito shake; the class was in virtual limbo fearing she would collapse on the floor. I learned later she failed her practice teaching semester but returned the next term to repeat her performance with improved confidence.

From the above menu of examples, one might conclude that the phenomenon of stage fright only occurs when one is speaking publicly. It may be oddly encouraging that stage fright is not only the property of public speakers. Stage fright is a phenomenon that occurs in many professions and many situations.

Teachers, even professors, face this challenge every day in class. Each teacher copes privately with their nervous demons. For some teachers, stage fright always remains a challenge. For a few, they revel performing in the spotlight. For others, it is a non-issue.

Students dread their pre-exam jitters without having a word to label the phenomenon. Some tell stories of studying all night and going blank on an exam. In another setting, their responses might be labeled “stage fright.”

Actors and performers face this challenge nightly. Abundant stories exist of well-known actors performing preshow rituals to minimize their performance jitters. Athletes in every sport – the basketball jump start, the hockey face-off, the baseball player at bat, the quarterback calling signals - experience this phenomenon, but rarely talk about it.

Tom Peters, the business guru, says he has given more than 3000 speeches and still gets very nervous before he begins.

Before we continue, a composite definition of stage fright would be useful. Known technically as “glossophobia,” (‘glosso” –tongue; “phobia” – fear or dread), stage fright is a state of heightened anxiety experienced often by public speakers prior to a public presentation. Recently it has become known as “performance anxiety.”

We will have a conversation about stage fright in the third program of this semester’s Richard Green Communication Club. “The Fear of Public Speaking” (Tuesday, February 26, 2019 from 3-5 pm in Room 144 at 320-West 31^st Street) was put together by our Communication Work Study, Ms. Lashawna Bennet. Communication instructors and students alike will be sharing their experiences with “Stage Fright” and what they do about it. A perennial topic, Professor Deborah Becker, now head of the NYSCAS Learning Center, wrote a thoughtful piece on stage fright for the NYSCAS Touro Tempo several years ago.

Stage fright begins in the mind. In the public arena, you are always being tested. You can’t hide. Your sense of self-worth, your appearance, your ideas, your ability to convey your ideas, every part of your being is under a microscope. Doubt flashes by. Without reflection and understanding, stage fright can become an embedded mindset, repeated whenever certain circumstances manifest. It begins to fester when the inexperienced speaker learns she has to get up in front of a group. As the moment of presentation approaches, an overwhelming fear grips the body. Muscles tighten. The chest contracts. Breath becomes short and shallow. Hands get clammy. She feels vulnerable, exposed, without clothes, facing an unknown undefined adversary. As her fear grows, she faces binary pressure – success or failure – life or death. The audience is her enemy. They are out to destroy me! Me against them!

The threat of danger surges. The amygdala jumps into action. The muscles freeze. The mind is incapacitated. In her imagination, she begins to speak. Nothing comes out. She has forgotten her words. She cannot hide from the audience. Panic reigns. One thought races through her paralyzed brain: “Do I fight this enemy or run?” She stops functioning, a deer caught in the headlights. The mind replays past failures and embarrassment. The brain creates jerky movement. Somehow the speaker gets through this terrible moment and exits the stage. And collapses – out of public sight.

The speaker slowly awakens from her trance. She looks around. No blood. No broken bones. She’s still whole – and alive.  She notices that the world is the same. It has not swallowed her. She has escaped with her life.

Why does this happen? In the experience of every day interaction, you are not entirely aware of the varying stresses on the individual. But in the speaking situation, not only is the occasion important, a huge bright spotlight shines on you. Constantin Stanislavsky, the great Russian acting coach, tells actors “to get into their circle,” their circle of light. That circle is a mental image of an intense white-hot light that blocks out everything so the actor can focus on her work – building a character.

The speaker’s awful experience is a result of focusing on herself, not what she is speaking about. She has not created a mental image of herself as an important authority of her topic. She must win, or she is nothing. With repeated low-level practice (40-50 times), she learns to focus on what she is saying, not herself. Specific words or phrases no longer matter, her grammar doesn’t matter. Her role is to explain, to persuade, to teach. She is a messenger with a message.

The novice speaker does not have any experience in conscious concentration. She is unprepared for the sudden perceived intense pressure of performing. She learns to prepare by reviewing her notes and going into her Stanislavsky circle of light. She listens to her breathing – deep breathing, slow breathing. She stretches to loosen her chest muscles. She focuses on her central message.

The audience knows none of this. To them, the speaker looks normal, perhaps a little more upbeat than usual. They are looking forward to what the speaker is to say. They chat among themselves waiting for her to begin.

With training, practice and experience, the speaker learns to face her fear. This imminent threat is not going to kill her. This fear is her friend. In fact, this terrible fear is a fraud, a mirage that shrinks from a monster to a mouse when challenged.

Stage fright never really goes away. It is a good thing. In moderation. With practice fright becomes an ally, not an enemy. You learn to manage it. It’s part of your job. The anticipation of a mental face-off with your ideas and the audience sharpens the mind. It’s game day. It’s “Show time!”

An early strategy for students new to public speaking is to understand stage fright, to take the mystery out of the experience. Through frequent exercises (do them dozens and dozens of times) - impromptus, role plays. nonsense debates - students begin to realize that everything we do in life is an improvisation. With improvisation, there are no mistakes. There is only “and,” not “but.” We rarely know what we are going to say or do until we say or do it. We do not memorize. The Anglo-American poet W.H. Auden once noted that he never knew what he was going to write until he wrote something.

Thorough preparation of the speech creates a solid foundation. The speaker knows her topic so well she can argue it six ways from Sunday, alternately switching pro and con sides of an argument. She now wears her speech as a familiar costume, confident that she will appear to others as a new authority on the topic.

By the end of the semester, most Communication students seem to become a little more comfortable with stage fright. They almost forget themselves. They use their nerves to energize their presentation. They slowly learn to focus on their message ant not the messenger.