What you need is a big strong hand
To lift you to your higher ground
Make you feel like a queen on a throne
Make him love you till you can’t come down
(You’ll never come down)

Express yourself
(You’ve got to make him)
Express himself
Hey, hey, hey, hey
So if you want it right now, make him show you how
Express what he’s got, oh baby ready or not
Express yourself
(You’ve got to make him)
So you can respect yourself
Hey, hey
So if you want it right now, then make him show you how
Express what he’s got, oh baby ready or not

–Madonna, Express Yourself

Look inside. What keeps you from expressing yourself? Speaking up? Singing out? From stretching and breathing and opening up and allowing others in?

Fear.

What are you afraid of? Exposure? Failure? Judgment? Laughter (not the good kind)?

Have you ever rushed through an audition (or performance or interview or first date or presentation or speech or…) because you thought, “I just want to get this over with. I’m going to plow through. Please, don’t let them snicker, laugh, cough, ask questions, respond, or do anything to stretch this out or throw me off. I’ve got to get through this thing unscathed.”

Fear simmers inside us when the stakes are high.

What if we were to let down our guard and allow ourselves to become scathed? What if we opened ourselves to (what our psyche perceives as) the potential to be harmed, injured, damaged, wasted, destroyed. Yowtch. “He was scathed by calamity.” Well, it turns out the word calamity was first derived from “calamus,” when the corn could not get out of the stalk.

Okay. Alright. Getting out the corn. That doesn’t sound so bad. In fact, it’s rather appealing. Let’s say we want to get our corn out of the stalk. To open up and be deeply known. To express our innermost selves. For actors, this is how we earn our living.

Let’s embrace authentic self-expression as a goal. It is an act of courage and surrender. Let’s not allow ourselves to be intimidated by any aspect of the audition (or performance or presentation or …). Let’s do the opposite of attempting to leave unscathed. Let’s be open, vulnerable, and allow for the possibility of being affected, even wounded, by the other person.

That’s the beauty of a play. We get to go there and do that. We get to harm or be harmed, slay or be slayed, destroy or be destroyed. Then, we wipe off the make-up in the dressing room, throw on our sweats, and go home to catch up on episodes of Smash.

It feels good to go there. It is enlivening!

Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances.

When we put ourselves out there in an audition or performance, we feel scared. The stakes are high. This is important to us. Rather than channeling the fear, however, let’s give ourselves something proactive and tangible to do.

Mastering the text is a great place to start. Read the monologue (scene, play), and come up with a game plan. Use the text to activate the other person. Simply, what do you want from them? What will happen if you don’t get it? What are you going to do to make the other person give you what you need?

Own the text. Use the words to get what you want. Consume the text, and breathe out fire.

Make the dialogue your own. Use it to fight, fight, fight. Conquer the language. Squeeze every last bit of juice out of it, ingest it, digest it, and watch it shoot out of you in flames. It will appear in the form of passion, despair, romance, beguilement, threat, gratitude, hatred and love. Use the words to save your life.

Better yet, use the words to get your scene partner to save your life.

Use the words to push your enemy away, or to pull them close and cut them or kiss them. Use the words to get that person to fulfill your desires, quench your thirst, realize your pain, experience your terror, feel your joy.

Use the words. Burn brightly. Be unquenchable. Passionate. Take charge. Be powerful.

Slay it. Kill it. Do it.

Let’s stop playing it safe. Let’s instead play dangerously. Let’s live without caution or judgment. Go forward in the face of fear. It requires courage, and you’ve got it.

You see, you are formidable. You are a force to be reckoned with. I love you and fear you and am exhilarated to face you and battle you.

I cannot live without self-expression. I cannot live without theatre. I am going to show up and fight for what I cannot live without. And I’m going to get it. I’m going to win. I won’t leave until I have left every shred of myself, using the text, on the stage.

You will conquer all when you let down your guard, express yourself, and take command of the text and use it to fight for what you desperately want and need. It’ll make for glorious, high-stakes theatre, and you will have won the biggest battle: To face your fear and win.

 Fight and mean it.

Fight and win.