Pre-Performance Nerves!

[awesomeelle2001]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but anyway.

My drama performance of "Twelth Night" by Shakespeare is tomorrow (Friday) night and I'm super nervous!
For those of you that know of the play, I play Viola who is one of the main characters.
I have a costume change right in the beginning of the play where I get changed on stage and then have two lines to get changed again. My parents and siblings will also be in the audience so ugh.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows any techniques I can use to actually calm down and not panic?
I'm literally freaking out as the cast doesn't really know what their doing.

Thanks for your help and I'd like to think this post can help people who need help with their nerves too!

 

[Pookie4557]

I don't know if this will help you as I've never really had pre-performance nerves that much, and if I do it's generally just me being excited, but here's how I think of any play performance. It's just another dress rehearsal. Think about it, you do that same thing you do during a dress rehearsal, just if your director tells you to change something or that you messed up a line during a dress rehearsal try to be more alert when those times come up so you do it perfectly. Also keep this in mind, every show will have screw ups, and most, if not all the time, as long as the person/people who mess up stay in character the audience won't notice anything wrong. Most the time the audience will just think that whatever happened was apart of the script, so don't worry about messing up something. For example in the most recent play I was in every night we ran it something bad happened, anything from one of the girls falling flat on her butt twice in the span of 5 minutes, to a broom falling over when someone was doing a spell. The audience thought both of these were intentional. Another thing that helps is simply ignoring the audience, unless of course you have to break the 4th wall or interact with them. If you don't have to interact with them at all then keep your focus on your fellow actors, react appropriately, say your lines to them, and just keep all of your focus on the people on the stage with you. Also bear in mind that they're all in the same boat you are so you're not going up there extremely nervous alone. And with you being concerned about the rest of the cast not knowing what they're doing as long as you do what you need to you'll be fine. I've noticed the audience, of course, judges the play as a whole, but they also judge people on their own merits, this is how people "steal the show."
-=+=-
Now I know I typed a lot and idk if any of this will help, especially because I don't know your age, how you actually think/are as a person, or how many plays you've previously been in so idk what you know and what you don't. All I've got to say is you'll be fine, it's a given that someone will mess up no matter how good/bad the cast is so try not to worry about it, and of course... break a leg .

 

[KingKyle]