Student Thespians Fight Stage Fright

This is the tale about how one school's production of "Charleston, A 1920's Musical" became a local hit. As any performer, young or old knows, stage fright can be a real internal battle. The students at Duncan Christian School discovered just how real this battle can be, no matter how excited you are to perform.

That nervous energy translated itself into an astounding, applause inducing performance, which taught these kids how to direct those butterflies. Saucy dance routines and very realistic dialogue is what came of that energy direction, leaving the audience chuckling and cheering for the performance. Duncan Christian is fairly new to the theater; they have only been doing this for a few years now. Backstage, before the performance, a few of the teens didn't even think they could go on. They began putting their stage fright coaching to use and you could see focused energy take over the room. Some kids were stretching, because this relieves some muscle tension. Others were shaking their limbs around to get the blood and adrenaline pumping. Still others were seen doing deep breathing exercises to slow their heart rate and collect their nerves. All of them were seen yawning, which is a great way to help open and relax your throat before a performance.

No matter what techniques they used, they were able to go onstage a deliver an outstanding performance. In fact, the performance was much better than anyone had anticipated, especially with the school being so new to it all. Between the up-beat song and dance routines and well timed comedic delivery, the show was a Broadway-caliber performance. Proving that you do not need to have years of experience to deliver a quality performance, all you need is drive and good strategy for handling the stage fright battle.