Ever had an audition where you were so in your head that you blacked out?
My friend once told me a story that I’ll never forget.
He was auditioning for his theatre’s summerstock season at the Midwest Theatre Auditions.
If you’ve never been to a theatre conference, it can be an intimidating circus. You perform in a large theatre to several casting directors and have only 90 seconds to present.
It’s run like clockwork so once your time is up, you hustle offstage and the next actor begins. It’s like actors on a conveyor belt!
My friend was in the theatre looking for talent.
There was a door onstage that actors kept thinking was the way out but really was a closet. Every few actors or so, the casting directors would have to yell, “that’s a closet!” and the actors would laugh at themselves and head offstage the right way.
Until this one poor soul.
Nervous as could be, a young actor came onstage and performed her 90 seconds.
Eager to leave after singing, she headed straight towards the closet.
“That’s not backstage! That’s a closet!” the casting directors yelled.
She nodded back, feigning that she’d heard them…
...and walked right into the closet and shut the door.
My friend didn’t think anyone watched the next actor perform as they stared in disbelief at the closet that now entrapped the oblivious actor.
She did escape after the next actor’s 90 seconds but the point of the story is this:
It is our jobs as actors to be present in the moment and to let everything affect us.
However, when we get in the mindset of, “I must focus, get it right, and perform exactly the way I practiced,”
We can miss so much. We can become more like robots than humans.
What the actor above experienced is called “inattentional blindness.”
You may have seen this study and the below video on the psychological occurrence of inattentional blindness. If you haven’t, take a moment to watch the video and count the number of ball passes between the people wearing white.
How many passes did you count?
This video and accompanying study highlights inattentional blindness, which is when we’re so focused on one thing that we miss a glaringly obvious other. You may not have (as most of the participants in the study didn’t), noticed the person in the gorilla suit walking right into the middle of the video.
If you did, your creative brain was working for you! A follow-up study found that the majority of those who did notice the gorilla were creatives and therefore able to view the whole picture rather than just an aspect of streamlined focus.
Our creative minds are naturally able to take in the whole picture. However, we can all fall into the trap of inattentional blindness when we’re in our analytical, technical brains focused solely on “getting it right.”
Practice your technique. Study your craft.
But when it’s time to perform, you have to allow that laser beam of focus to vanish in order to be fully aware of what’s happening around you.
It is our job as actors to be the experts on the current moment. Stay open. Don’t let your desire to be perfect impede your ability to be present.