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Tonight is a very exciting night for me, but it’s also a very scary one.
After a week long hell of technical rehearsals, tonight I make my debut as a production stage manager in Kensington Arts Theatre’s production of The Rocky Horror Show. For the past three months I’ve lived a life of 14 hour days between Virgina and Maryland, and while there were fun times and memories during the rehearsal process- those feelings of fun were replaced with high tension and sensitive feelings coupled with a few nights of sleeplessness. It’s the kind of stress that makes you question why you signed up for this thing in the first place.
For me it’s been very stressful because it’s my first tech run (and now performance run) as a stage manager. I’m no stranger to theatre, the best moments of my high school career was producing over seven plays in my last two years at CHS; however producing and stage managing are two totally different beasts.
I really tried my best not to seem totally inept at the position. I read books, made tons of lists, and tried to go above and beyond every-time I could. It was helpful that I knew what to do during the rehearsal period since I had some experience on a show that shall not be named. Despite this, the past week has been very tough on me- because I’m not used to failing. As much as I tried to not act like a complete rookie, I blew cues, mismanaged actor calls, and got in the way of the tech designers I’m trying to help. A stage manager needs to be cool at all times- and I was boiling over as I couldn’t handle everything that was being thrown at me.
But that’s ok.
The great Matthew Berry once said that, “If you are trying to do something and you haven’t failed at it yet, you aren’t trying hard enough.” After dress rehearsal last night where my video projector malfunctioned and communications headset died and I was finishing last minute videos until five minutes before places; I drove home thinking what a terrible job I’ve done this week. I wanted things to go perfect this week and I’m learning that things never go perfect on a tech week.
Why d0 I want things to be perfect? Because I want everything in my life to go well. Generation Y has been brought up as overachievers that believe we can do anything we want, and if we don’t get it right immediately we panic. Everybody gets a blue ribbon and everybody is coddled to think they can succeed- which is good but it needs to be grounded in values of hard work and the occasional failure along the way. I want to be a good stage manager, I want to earn the praise, respect, and acceptance from my peers. When you were in school it wasn’t that hard, except in the real world, you don’t always get that the TLC you were fed as children. As a result it takes me a longer to not take criticism personally, I can’t help but feel that I’ve become more incompetent when I work my ass off just to get new note on my performance.
In the end however I stop and realize why I care so much? It’s because I want to be good- I want to be a great stage manager that people can count on. That means I need to make mistakes and I need to learn from them. I can’t help but imagine there’s a whole generation of people that will graduate college and quickly realize that real life isn’t as coddling as it once was. There are going to be moments where you fail, sometimes terribly. In that case you have to ask yourself how bad do you want it?
Because if you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying hard enough.
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Comments
10.26.09
Patrick, You are so right about being open to "failure". Although I like to say open to "learning" because:
- That's what is really happening
- Failure open happens when you stop trying (forget the author of that quote)
- Most importantly, your true success comes in something you didnt' expect to learn
I am working on a project to help GEN Y learn certain skills -- would you and others on this site be willing to give me GEN Y input/perspective?
I hope so... feel free to email me info@katenasser.com.
Many thanks,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach
10.26.09
Kate- you are right, it's not failing as much as it is learning, and I can tell you I've done a lot of learning last week! Thanks for reading!
10.26.09
I agree with this post - but just want to add, even the non-overachievers are still not used to failing. I think another trademark of our Generation is one of being given huge rewards for little product. This certainly provided a boost to our ego, with a disproportionate sense of the amount of work it takes to be successful.
Just some general thoughts...thanks for the post!
10.26.09
Thanks Karina, I just read your blog and I think you know that there's a lot of hard work ahead to get what you want- good luck!
10.26.09
I had a ski instructor who kept telling me, "if you are not falling, you are not learning". If we equate falling with failing - as you describe in your post, then falling down, picking yourself up, and trying again is a great way to learn. And in the process there is the possibility that we may discover that skiing - or any other activity or field of study - is something at which we are not very good and that's a great learning.
DrJohnDrozdal
10.26.09
Good point Dr. John, there are just going to be some things we aren't good at compared to others- but we won't know unless we try. That's how I discovered I wasn't going to be a Major League baseball player at 14.
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