David Chiu

After three hours of rehearsal today and days of trying to do a Bronx accent for the play DOUBT, the culmination was me having a meltdown on stage with sweat dripping off my face. I tried to work past my anxiety but it was too late. I had to stop the scene. I felt like I had failed. I had spent two months working on self confidence and tonight served as a little test to see how much confidence I had gained. None. Although I did feel more confident just being myself on stage during my critique. The anxiety arose from several things: the fact I was trying a heavy Bronx accent which I knew needed a lot of work, the fact that I didn’t do all of the steps to prepare the scene like I have been taught in the two year program, the fact that my teacher from my second year taught tonight, the fact that the scene felt awkward from the moment I opened my mouth on stage. It all contributed to my self doubt and anxiety. As my wife told me tonight, I need to have the confidence and charm on-stage that I do when I go for job interviews. I don’t put much into job interviews since to me it’s “just a job” which I can easily get anywhere else. I’m relaxed, at ease, confident (on the verge of being cocky) and very sure of myself. I don’t worry what the interviewers think of me. That’s how I need to be on stage. Tom said tonight that people like Russel Crowe are stars because they ooze confidence. They believe in themselves and the characters they are playing and they don’t care what other people think. They just are. So I still need to learn to be onstage and just “be”.