The following is completely true in all of its mildly but not really all that embarrassing accuracy.

2013
I am no stranger to stage fright.

My typical symptoms are nausea, sweaty palms, lightheadedness, and the general urge to run like hell and not stop until I’m a long way away from whatever I’m supposed to be performing.

Although, considering the fact that the right wing of the stage is so dark that I can barely see the outline of my feet, running would not be a good idea. Also, I’m wearing sandals. Also, I’m freezing. Many thanks to my director for insisting that Aphrodite’s costume (she’s one of my characters—I’m also Athena, in the same play) be a short blue lace dress and metallic sandals.

Ah, acting.

Another thing I am no stranger to. Throughout all the various school plays I’ve been involved in, I’ve dealt with insane actresses trying to undermine everything I do, potential public embarrassment, being cast in roles I really had no interest in, and having to deal with playing a lot of unbelievably screwed up characters (for instance, in eighth grade I was a snarky, goth Rumplestiltskin in the ridiculous fairy-tale themed spring musical). Even so, I honestly can’t say I’ve ever performed in front of this many people, most of whom I don’t know. My parents, my best friend and his parents, and a family friend are all watching, and that does absolutely nothing to settle my stomach.

Calm down, I tell myself. You’ve nailed every one of your lines in every tech rehearsal since Tuesday. You know the blocking. You know what you’re supposed to do. YOU ARE APHRODITE, DAMN IT!

There is a burst of static from the microphone over to the left, on the strip of stage in front of the heavy blue curtains. There’s one on each side of the stage, leading to a short flight of wooden steps going down into the house, and there’s normally a podium or a microphone there for whoever is in charge of assemblies or introducing one of our drama productions. In this case, it’s the Assistant Producers of the Winter One-Acts Festival, introducing the second half of the show.

Ali and Hannah (the Assistant Producers) make their speech. It’s a short, rhyming poem thing, and it would be funny if I was actually paying attention. Instead, I’m watching the flicker of running crew’s flashlights and the faint outlines of glow tape stuck to the much-abused stage and trying really hard not to throw up.

I mean, this can’t be any worse than the first time I ever acted on stage, can it?

2004
Nine years earlier, and I am a first grader who has just been informed of her impending stardom in the spring musical.

When I say “impending”, I mean that my teacher/director had just drawn me and my friend Lizzie off to the side to inform us that though we were both taken into consideration, I’d been chosen to be Cinderella, and Lizzie was most likely going to be one of the evil stepsisters. I was a bit confused--as far as I knew, no one had ever seen me act, which was more than a little unnerving.

There was complete silence. Mrs. MacDowell (my teacher) watched us both expectantly.

“Why?” Lizzie asked.

I started. I hadn’t exactly expected anyone to speak.

“What do you mean?” Mrs. MacDowell asked.

Lizzie’s mouth was set in a firm line. “Why does she get to be Cinderella?”

I decided to keep my mouth shut.

Mrs. MacDowell floundered for a second before responding. “We thought Marina would be best suited for the part.” We meaning Mrs. MacDowell and Mr. Kennedy, the music teacher.

That didn’t seem to persuade Lizzie, who just crossed her arms, huffed loudly, and stomped off. I stood there awkwardly and tried to count the little plastic dinosaurs sitting in the glass jar on my teacher’s desk. Every time we did something nice for each other, Mrs. MacDowell would add a dinosaur to the jar. Even since the announcement of the first grade spring musical, the jar always seemed to be running a bit low.

For first graders, we all got along tolerably well. The boys mostly did their own thing, and the girls did theirs, and we minded our own business and didn’t bother each other. Only, we’d been biting each other’s heads off for about a week. Every girl wanted to be Cinderella, and every boy who was actually interested in this (some of them were, though they wouldn’t admit it, and the others just didn’t care) wanted to be the Prince.

“Marina?” Mrs. MacDowell had turned her attention back to me.

“Hmm?” I said.

She opened one of the drawers in her desk. “I need to give you your script.” She handed me a small booklet with a pale blue cover. It said A Twisted Cinderella on the front. “Read it with your parents, and they can help you memorize your lines. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks, Mrs. MacDowell.”

She just gave me a rather strained smile.

Lizzie didn’t speak to me for a month afterwards. By that time, everyone else had been cast and we were learning our songs, and starting to put together a coherent show. Lizzie had been relegated to Evil Stepsister Number 2.

She wasn’t particularly happy about it.

I was getting worried.

It wasn’t about lines, or singing, or dancing, or anything else. My mom had marked all of my lines with bright yellow highlighter, and helped me learn them every day. Mr. Kennedy continued to shock us with his patience and willingness to do things over and over until we finally got them right. The dancing was easy, mostly because I was fairly coordinated and didn’t feel the need to melodramatically flail around, like certain people did.

I wasn’t worried about my five or six lightning-fast costume changes either. (Having too many costume changes in one show is overwhelming even when you’re in high school, like I am now, and you should be able to handle it.)

In short, I didn’t care about everything I should have been worried about--everything that, by all rights, should have had me unwilling to go within thirty feet of the stage.

No, I was more concerned about Lizzie’s continuing unwillingness to acknowledge me.

The first performance went off without any major issue. The biggest mishap was one of the narrators forgetting some of his lines, but we had two adults backstage ready to whisper cues if necessary, so that problem was quickly fixed.

The second performance was where things got interesting.

We were at the scene where Cinderella is at the ball, and it’s almost midnight, when she has to leave otherwise her carriage will be turned back into a pumpkin and her lovely pink ball gown with lace sleeves will be turned back into an old patched dress.

I had to run off the stage when I heard the clock chime midnight, leaving behind one of my shoes—white canvas sneakers just a little too big for me (so they would fall off easily at the right moment), painted five different colors. No glass slippers for this Cinderella—in this version of the play, she doesn’t want to get married. She made her own shoes, and liked it so much she wanted to be a shoemaker.

Which, to be honest, would be a pretty cool job.

So, at the appropriate moment, I turned away from the Prince and started off to stage right. I got to the edge of the curtain and realized something wasn’t right.

The shoe should have come off by then—the shoe that was obviously still attached to my foot.

Uh-oh. My stomach jolted unpleasantly.

Okay, I told myself. You have to get the shoe off otherwise the Prince can’t put it back on your foot later.

So I did the only thing my first-grade brain could come up with under pressure: I started shaking my foot.

Thankfully it didn’t take long for the slightly-too-big shoe to come off, but by the time the shoe was on the floor and I was off the stage, most of the audience was laughing. I took that as a good sign. Evil Stepsister Number 1 nudged me and grinned. I grinned back, cause after all, it was pretty funny. Comic relief, right?

The best part was, as I scuttled off further backstage for my last costume change, I had seen Lizzie trying (and failing) to suppress a smile.

Lizzie came up to me after the show, when we had changed out of our costumes and were milling around with our parents.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” I said back. “You were really good.”

“So were you.”

There was a brief pause.

“The shoe thing was kinda funny,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “It kinda was.”

And with that, we burst out laughing.

2013
The microphone gives off a little more static, then the spotlight on Ali and Hannah goes off. Running crew turns off their flashlights and runs into the wings.

Oh crap.

Breathe.

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

“Hey,” someone whispers.

“Yeah?” I turn around.

My friend Sara, a drama freshman who’s responsible for moving my chair onstage a few scenes in, grins at me, her bleached-blonde-and-pink hair practically glowing. “Break a leg,” she says, and hugs me.

“I will,” I whisper back, and the curtain opens. Sara gives me a thumbs-up, and vanishes behind the midcurtain.

I steel myself and walk onstage.

Turns out I don’t have anything to worry about.