That Time Last Week I Wanted to Throw Up on Stage

Last week as I was getting ready to come off stage, I braced myself for the kind of golf clap you give to someone who “really tried hard.”

I had joined a very competitive acting workshop and had been assigned one of the toughest scenes in American theater history. A pivotal scene in August Wilson’s Fences, made popular (again) in recent years by Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Maybe you’ve heard of them.

I do love getting the chance to dog-ear and markup some pages.

Annoyingly big shoes to fill.

Add to that that the workshop was full of People You See on TV, folks with millions of followers, and extraordinarily talented performers who had been in this workshop for years longer than I had.

Your girl was nervous. Like dry mouth and onion sweat nervous.

Especially because most of my performance is comedic. Standup. Funny storytelling. Some jokes on TikTok. Being asked to take on Fences was like… Ummm, okay… What in the humiliation ritual is this??

I had spent weeks trying to finesse every line of this scene. Move at exactly the right times. And produce a few beautiful tears to run down my face on cue. I wanted everything about this performance, this presentation, this moment to be perfect.

And that’s exactly what happened. I didn’t miss a beat, I remembered all my lines, and everything went according to plan, the end.

Just kidding. Nothing was perfect.

My props didn’t end up in the right places on stage. I forgot a line. My body reinvented the movement on the fly, and I ended up in a part of the stage I’d never gone to before. 

And no tears came.

Dangit, those tears were gonna look so cool!

Instead of crying poetically, I scrumpt a scream so raw that my throat burned as soon as it happened. I didn’t even know I could make that sound.

When the scene finished, I wanted nothing more than to crawl back to my seat and figure out teleportation right quick so I could leave the theater without anyone knowing.

But teleportation was going to have to wait. I couldn’t go anywhere. Because the audience stood and I ended up receiving the longest standing ovation I’d ever received.

At first, I thought: “What is happening?? These people are really over-reacting to an okay-fine performance.”

But then I thought: “Ohhhhhh yeah. I know about this. I just forgot.”

For a few minutes while I was on that stage, I truly didn’t know what was going to happen. Neither did anyone else. I stopped trying to conjure rehearsed steps anymore. It was like I was discovering the scene for the first time. I was present. Really freaking present.

And that ability to be so present is electric! Presence is 1000 times better than perfection. It’s contagious. It’s wonderful. And it deserves applause.

I was grateful that the audience reminded me of that that day.

So many of us get into this stuck feeling when we have to present to others.

There’s a real instinct to make it all sound super smooth and polished and like we’ve never made a mistake or misstep ever in our entire lives. To make something look and sound “correct” rather than allowing it to sound… like us.

We delete the weird turns of phrase that our families invented (anyone else know what a “doo doo tube” is??) in case they sound funky from the stage. We choke back the moment we genuinely get choked up in our keynote. We start speaking in a voice we literally never use anywhere else and that no good friend would recognize as ours.

F*ck that noise.  

No one is watching you (or me or anyone else), or reading you, or being with you to witness robotic perfectionism. Everyone wants to be surprised, delighted, and engaged. They want to feel that something is happening. Right now. That’s the stuff they’ll stand for, the stuff they’ll remember.

And it’s hard to do that from your head.

You gotta kinda be willing to leave your self-consciousness back stage, not worry about where your props are, and let whatever sounds your soul wants to make come on out.

I’m not suggesting we don’t rehearse or plan for the best, but if you’ve been given the opportunity to speak or share a piece of writing, everyone already knows you’re competent enough to get through it.

What we’re all hoping for is that you’re present enough to make us want to stand.

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Aydrea Walden is an Emmy-nominated screenwriter and creative consultant who helps leaders and creative teams turn big ideas into presentations, pitches, speeches, scripts, and stories people remember. If you're ready to start, email aydrea@aydreawalden.com.