9: Pre-Show Nerves & Anxiety with Abigail Adriano

Do you ever get those pre-performance jitters, where your nerves feel like they're doing a tap dance of their own? How do you manage them before stepping into the spotlight?

Abigail joins Taylor in a heartfelt conversation about her journey as a performer. From a musical family, she was initially on a path to getting a law degree when a singing teacher told her about an audition opportunity for Miss Saigon in Sydney, which she promptly applied for and successfully got the part.

She discusses her process in managing pre-performance anxieties, navigating being in the public eye, and the importance of maintaining personal balance while committing to demanding roles.

They talked about:
-  Abigail's Journey into Performing Arts
- The Turning Point: Miss Saigon Audition
- The Challenges and Rewards of Being a Performer
- The Importance of Intimacy Coaching in Theater
- Dealing with Pre-Show Nerves and Anxiety
- Coping with High Expectations and Public Profile

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Here Are Your Next Steps 👇🏻

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Step Four: 🎥 Watch our MOST DOWNLOADED Podcast Episode with Luca Dinardo

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Every day I feel like I've improved. Vocally or acting wise. I feel like I've improved. But what doesn't change is the fact that we can have things in our personal life that comes in our way and panges our mental capacity or my emotions to the show. So it's always allowing myself to realize okay, maybe I'm not feeling it today, but I'm going to surrender to the moment and trust that I've got this.

Speaker 2: 0:28

Yeah, for sure. That's so special and I love that you mentioned that. A lot of the time, the things that we're struggling with, when it comes down to anxiety and nervousness, it comes from this place, from it's a future thinking that we don't really have control over. We don't know what's going to about to happen, so our minds and our bodies can play tricks on us to try and protect us.

Speaker 1: 0:51

My first rodeo of Miss Saigon, I was really struggling with the mental side of things and believing in myself that I was capable of doing this. No matter how much I could sing the material, no matter how much I could run around the stage and deliver all my acting, it was still that imposter syndrome and sending to myself. And the time I did it it was so scary. But for me, just allowing myself to surrender to the moment and to just trust that everything that you've worked so hard for is just right there.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Hello and welcome back to the dive podcast, where each week, we interview professional performing artists as we discuss their stories and dive deeper into learning how to navigate the challenges we face as artists. I'm your host, taylor Scanlon. I am a musical theatre performer and yoga teacher, and today we have Abigail Adriano joining us in the studio. Abigail is currently the leading lady of Miss Saigon, the Musical, which is about to go overseas, and we had such a wonderful discussion. She is such a beautiful young lady woman, I should say and today we talk on topics of pre-show anxiety, pre-show nerves and how to manage expectations from the outside world and even within ourselves. So if you're excited, just like I am, let's get into the episode, okay, well, welcome to the show, abigail. It's so wonderful to have you on the show. How are you?

Speaker 1: 2:40

Hi Taylor, I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you, yay.

Speaker 2: 2:47

I know so many listeners are going to get so much benefit from listening to you today, so why not get straight into it? Let's talk about you and your training that kind of led you up to or, even before your training, what got you into being a performer.

Speaker 1: 3:03

That is such a huge question because I think my whole life I've always loved singing, dancing and acting. Like my mum tells me, before I could walk, I started walking when I was 18 months, which is pretty late, and I was already singing and I was already grooving in my chair. That's all my mum told me so.

Speaker 1: 3:24

I've always loved it. I've been a part of a really big, very musical, forward Filipino family and I feel like, because I've been surrounded by music my whole life, it was just like the only thing that I've wanted. But ironically, as life comes in the way of school academics, going to uni, the pressures of what a job should look like, I found myself at uni doing a law degree instead of doing music, like my little self told myself I would be. Suddenly, I continued doing singing lessons to keep my up and my singing teacher mentioned Miss Saigon is coming to Sydney and I just think you'd be perfect. I know you're in a law degree right now, but I just want someone else fitting for it. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is the dream musical that I've always wanted to be in. There's not many Asian women who are leads in the show.

Speaker 2: 4:15

Definitely.

Speaker 1: 4:16

I was just like I have to go for this and I'm sorry, law degree but like uni's always going to be there, but Miss Saigon at 18 years old is a once in a lifetime opportunity. So I was like you know what I'm doing it. I applied, I deferred for my uni and I started singing the songs. I started practicing them in my music room. I think I had two days to submit a self tape and I spent from morning to night practicing my self tape. I uploaded it and here we are today doing Miss Saigon, the real deal.

Speaker 2: 4:49

The real deal, and that is just an amazing story. In my experience of performing every single year, it's constant change. You just really don't know what this amazing profession can take you and how awesome that you were studying something completely different and how wonderful that you had a friend and a person to reach out to you say Abigail, you need to get over here, this is where you're meant to be.

Speaker 1: 5:16

Yeah, honestly, the universe was like this is perfect timing and I feel like I needed to take that opportunity. And there are lots of things in life where I felt I'm misperforming, because I did Matilda the musical at the Sydney Lyric Theatre when I was 10 years old. I was one of the dancers, I was one of the ensemble members and that was just everything to me, especially as a kid. Those kid shows are like your whole life. And, yeah, when I decided to focus my shift to academics, it was a real grieving period. I would never do this again. So I just knew I had to take that opportunity when he offered it to me.

Speaker 2: 5:54

Oh, absolutely Absolutely. And so you were saying you were a bit younger and was performing always something that you wanted to do. Was it always in your blood in the family?

Speaker 1: 6:05

It's quite interesting actually. Like my family loves singing and performing, I grew up singing at church every Sunday at an eight o'clock mass like girl. If someone asked me to sing at eight o'clock today I don't think I could, but I started and I guess that's the most performer in my family.

Speaker 1: 6:26

I think I'm the first person in my family to really take musical theater as a career, so it was a huge step. But Miss I Gone because it's such an iconic show in the Philippines yeah, they were really proud of it. I was very grateful that they didn't see it as a lot of my friends parents do, where it's kind of taboo career and it's just like is it sustainable? And I still kind of feel that in a way, from the older generation, if I'm being honest, there's still that expectation that I will go back to uni and I get that law degree, which I'm not really pressed about because I really enjoy studying. But I'm really going to enjoy this ride as it comes.

Speaker 2: 7:09

Absolutely. And how special, not only to get into the show, play one of the leads, but now actually getting the experience to go and celebrate in the Philippines with this show. How does that make you feel?

Speaker 1: 7:24

Oh gosh, I can't even put in words how that feels. I haven't been to Philippines since I was seven years old. So initially, when I found out that I was going to be playing Kim and Manila, I kind of felt like this weird displacement, because I know that I'm much more Aussie than I am Filipino, you know the long girls my age, this generation, can feel that we can't speak the language, but culture.

Speaker 1: 7:51

We got the food, but once I get to my hometown it's kind of like do I fit in, or am I truly Aussie or am I truly Filipino? So that's another thing that I feel. But I'm honestly just so excited because I think Manila hasn't seen this show in like 20 years and I think as much as there's like pressure to reprise this role since Layas and Longa, I'm just like so excited.

Speaker 2: 8:16

That's so exciting and we've had a few mis-sig on us members on the show. We recently had Nigel on the show and I think at the time of recording, I think your podcast episodes actually will be out before his, so we can say hello to Nigel. He talks wonders about you in his episode as well, and seeing you both on stage I mean the chemistry is just incredible and to be able to bring that amount of yourself to the stage each and every day is a lot. I can see that it's a lot, but you guys commit so wonderfully and you work so well together and it's just a phenomenal show and I'm just so proud that you are having this experience and I know you're just going to love going overseas and I couldn't think of anyone better to go over there and smash it out and really appreciate the role.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Oh, thank you, I think, nigel, if I have to say anything about Nigel working with Nigel, it's he makes it so easy to kiss him.

Speaker 2: 9:15

Well, that's good, because I know that he's not necessarily super fond of the ladies. Let's just say so it's very amazing.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Best way possible, like I, genuinely, from the moment that I met him in the audition room. He is just such a wonderful person and such a professional actor. Like he is incredible at what he does, and I mean that in the sense that intimacy for me, like stepping into a lead role for the first time ever in my dream role and understanding what it takes to like make that love look real. Nigel just makes the experience of partner work so free and I think having those intimacy sessions that we had during rehearsals was incredible. But, like him as a person also makes it such an open experience before show, I'm sure for a lot of people, but for us before show, we're always hyping each other up and we're just like I love you, you got this. Let's make love today, let's make it a great one. It's so fun because there will be days where before show, I'm like Nigel, I just need you to carry me on this one and he'll be like I got you, and then vice versa, it will be like that.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Oh, that's so wonderful. I love that nowadays the intimacy coaching is very much more prevalent in the industry. I would love to talk about that. What was that experience like you were just saying that, coming in fresh into a show, your first big show to then now having to kiss and be so vulnerable to this rehearsal panel? What was that intimacy coaching like, and what was like a day in the life of how that was kind of run?

Speaker 1: 10:59

Yeah, we had intimacy coaching from Miss Agon from the get go.

Speaker 1: 11:04

If people know Miss Agon, you know how intimate the show is, not just for Chris and Kim, but for that person whether it be being intimate with another partner or being very vulnerable with your emotions on the stage on a day, sometimes like you don't want to give all that emotion, but it was really liberating experience because we had Chloe Dalamore.

Speaker 1: 11:26

She was incredible. We started off like playing games, like we are kids in primary school, but it felt like those games where you just introduce yourself to the other person and then it was like three colors, like this was the exercise that we had. It was like red, green and yellow. And green is you're good to go, yellow is I'm okay, but there are certain areas that I'm not okay with, and then red is we just need to find a completely different way to do this. So, even though it felt almost like a game at first, it makes it so easy now, before a show, to just be like this is my color, let's work with it and go, but it was great because I feel like now the communication in the cast is great.

Speaker 2: 12:13

That's so awesome and it's amazing that now there is so much focus on that. And, oh my gosh, for a show like Miss Saigon, you really need, like you said that time, to feel safe, because you're talking about many topics that aren't just intimacy but, yeah, vulnerable and really heart-wrenching, especially for someone like yourself. You're super mature but you're still very young and coming into a lot of these topics. To be able to feel that and even have a child on stage and make it seem like you are a mother, what was that experience like for you?

Speaker 1: 12:48

Oh my gosh. Actually that's one of my favorite experiences in Miss Saigon just being able to work with my onstage child, because they are like, seriously, they make my job so fun and so cute. They're so cute and I am the youngest daughter of three girls in my family, so I've never really been like the older sister. But I have a lot of baby cousins who I have helped raised, and one of them I actually put forward to audition in the Sydney Tam auditions and so my baby cousin, who I practically raised since Nappy's, ended up being a Tam. So she helped me as well in the scenes where I don't want to spoil the story but I have everything I can to protect my son and so seeing my own blood, like my own family, being put in those vulnerable situations, I feel like that just activated this love inside of me and for all the other kids as well. We created a bond with each other that, even though it's like nonverbal onstage, it's the eye contact, it's the making they're okay to hug you.

Speaker 1: 14:01

It's making sure that they feel safe as humans on the stage in front of 2000 people, and that's always a work in progress as we work with more kids, but it's always a joy, like they always bring light into the cast.

Speaker 2: 14:17

Yeah, oh, I mean the moment when you can see the kids on stage. Your heart just sinks. You're like, oh my goodness and we're talking about age here what's the age range of this Tam? Because they're super young.

Speaker 1: 14:31

They are four to six years old.

Speaker 2: 14:34

And all of that's happening around them.

Speaker 1: 14:36

That's just mental, yeah, and this is something that I really love about Miss Icon. It's that the other directors and directors, the dance captain, everybody makes sure that it's like a really safe environment to be vulnerable and I don't know what it was like back then, but all I can say is me stepping into this for the first time, I'm so grateful for that and that, like these, are things now that we have in place to make sure that everyone feels like they can deliver that side of reality, of human reality, into a show.

Speaker 2: 15:15

Oh, it's so special. Well, let's get into some of the topics today that are on the hearts and minds of performers out there, both that are in full time studying and in the industry. Big topic that's been raised recently is about pre-show nerves and pre-show anxiety. What has your experience been with pre-show nerves and how do you go about managing that and getting on stage?

Speaker 1: 15:42

Yeah, oh, pre-show knows I'll tell you, they're real.

Speaker 1: 15:47

They can feel so overwhelming, they can make or break a performance for me, because this show is such high stakes and it's massive commercial production and the role of Kim is such an iconic role as well.

Speaker 1: 16:00

So before Sydney, my first rodeo of Miss Saigon, I was really struggling with the mental side of things and believing in myself that I was capable of doing this. No matter how much I could sing the material, no matter how much I could run around the stage and deliver all my acting, it was still that imposter syndrome and saying to myself are you actually capable of this, or can you do it like it's been done before? And that was probably the biggest hurdle that I faced in terms of pre-show nerves, because it's always when the lights are off, you're in costume and the show starts, the first chords of the show starts, and that's when it's like fight or flight and the start of the time I did it. It was so scary, but for me, just allowing myself to surrender to the moment and to just trust that, like everything that you've worked so hard for, is just right there.

Speaker 1: 17:00

And so many people have told me that, and I didn't learn that until I was actually in the moment. Like, no matter how many times people told me, just trust yourself, you got this. I couldn't actually believe that until after my first show. I was like I just did that. I think it's still a constant battle for me as we are heading into the whole big Asia tour, because every day I feel like I've improved vocally or acting wise. I feel like I've improved, but what doesn't change is the fact that we can have things in our personal life that comes in our way and changes our mental capacity or my emotions to the show. So it's always allowing myself to realize okay, maybe I'm not feeling it today, but I'm going to surrender to the moment and trust that I've got this.

Speaker 2: 17:50

Yeah for sure. Yeah Well, that's so special and I love that you mentioned that. A lot of the time, the things that we're struggling with, when it comes down to anxiety and nervousness, it comes from this place, from it's a future thinking that we don't really have control over. We don't know what's going to about to happen, so our minds and our bodies can play tricks on us to try and protect us. You know this is about any scenario that kind of comes up in life, that we're unknown.

Speaker 2: 18:18

But then I guess for performers and yourself, it's even heightened again when you know that you're about to go on stage and deliver these tough and vulnerable pieces of material that actually require, when you're in those states, mentally and physically, emotionally, are anxiety and are stressful. So it's really hard to kind of pinpoint. How do we and maybe you can express how you do how can we go on stage, be fully immersed in the character and our emotions? But then, once the show is done, how do you kind of like detach from that? Do you have a post show ritual? Do you spend days where you don't think about the show? Like what do you do to kind of help make sure that you're still looking after yourself?

Speaker 1: 19:08

Yeah, in Sydney, whenever I was at home, my family loved to sing Miss Igon outside of the city.

Speaker 1: 19:15

I would take my grandfather's car and it would be Miss Igon, original London cast recording from 1989. And I had to just politely ask them I can't listen to this, I just cannot listen to this. And so everybody knows now that when I'm around they're not going to sing Miss Igon. I'll start singing a piece of the song and they'll be like oh sorry, abby, and I'm like that's okay, it's so fine. It's things like yeah, like detaching myself from Kim as well on the job. I know people do different things. I know Nigel likes to say goodbye to his costume, tap into him by. I like putting on my perfume. I wear like this perfume for Kim and then I like to wear my own favorite perfume once I exit the building and I think taking up as well is like a helpful thing and then putting on my own makeup. So sometimes I'm a bit late because I like to put on makeup after the show, which is weird. I'm loving it.

Speaker 2: 20:15

It's so natural to talk to you. We're just like chatting away. It was crazy because when I started this podcast I can't tell you sometimes just have to completely trust and surrender to the process of anything because when I started the podcast, my mom said you should do a podcast because I was creating this platform. And she said you should do a podcast and I was like all right, within the next week we'll found a place online. The next day saw the place.

Speaker 2: 20:41

The next day signed a 12 month lease, knowing that I just auditioned for a few shows, not knowing if I would even be there, like for those Mondays, because we lease out the Mondays on the studios. But I'm like you know what I'm going to create, what I want, and I'm going to show the universe that this is what I want and everything else is just going to go around it. And then from there I ended up getting sunset Boulevard that's in Melbourne until August and it's like all working out. So, on top of that, I never interviewed anyone in my life. I'm like, what do I do with you? But it was just so funny. I was sitting actually, kim Hodgson was the first person to be interviewed and I'm sitting there and I'm like a week ago this was an idea and now I have like 20 ring lights and got to go pros and phones everywhere, that we've got the mics and everything and it was just like, oh my goodness, like what is going?

Speaker 1: 21:31

on. Good on you, so good, I love that for you.

Speaker 2: 21:37

And now everyone's loving it and everyone wants to be a part of it, so it's awesome.

Speaker 1: 21:40

It's really cool, though I think podcast, listening to podcast and listening to actors experiences it's just so underrated. I think it has such a different mental process and I'm sure you have the whole process for yourself.

Speaker 2: 21:54

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:55

I'm still figuring it out and I don't know what my process is. It's funny that you asked me this, but I think all I can say is just trust in the moment, because every moment is different. Some days I'll be having a terrible stomach ache and what I have to trust is that my stomach is not going to do anything bad to me. That show Some days they're really amazing as well. Some days I just feel over the moon. I feel like I can absolutely kill it, and then halfway through the show I had like a tiny voice crack and then it's like, oh, I just got to trust that everything after this voice crack is going to be good. It's always in the moment. Everything can change in the moment.

Speaker 2: 22:33

For sure, and a lot of what we speak about on the show is about, at the end of the day, we're only one human and we're only capable of doing what one human can do, which is amazing. We can do so many things, but it's allowing ourselves to let go of the notion that we have to be perfect or that every choice to be amazing, and a main purpose that we created this podcast is to really show the lives of performers to share with you, the audience that are listening. Now that we are still people, we're still learning, no matter if you've been in the business 10 years or one month, like, we're still going through the motions. We have relationships and money and house, and whether we want kids, it's all one and the same. I love that you've shared that.

Speaker 1: 23:24

Thank you, and I think I don't know about housing or having kids yet, but it is a mental journey, I think. Probably for me it just feels weird about the way that I have to kind of connect myself and how much I go out and how much I can see friends. So my friends are all my universities so they can do whatever they want and sometimes I forget that. Oh yeah, like I miss my high school friends or I miss like partying with them and adjusting to like having a full-time job all of a sudden and having a public profile is also something I never, I totally forgot would come as a side effect of getting this role. And every day I'm so cool for this role and all my friends they say, oh my gosh, like what I would give to be able to have such a job where you love it every single day is what have I given up to do this as well?

Speaker 2: 24:23

Definitely, a life of performer is something you can't really explain unless you do it, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 24:31

Yeah, that's definitely for sure. But if I look back at my was year, I was still studying in high school. How do they do this every single day? And then, now that I'm the one on the stage, I'm like I don't know how I do this every day, but I just trust that I can.

Speaker 2: 24:49

Absolutely. We've got a friend joining us in the studio at home today my cat, who's been grooming at the door. So if you're watching the YouTube or socials, we'll add our cat into this little episode. Did he blink yeah?

Speaker 1: 25:04

Hi Link.

Speaker 2: 25:06

Oh, they're gorgeous.

Speaker 2: 25:09

So cute. All right, goodbye, link. Totally agree with you 100%. Going into another topic that I'd love to talk about and that is kind of similar to what we were just speaking about, now, you being in the public eye and leading a show comes with these wonderful, I would say, accolades, but just, it's an amazing life and, like you said, you're really enjoying it. You're really grateful and you can just see that in your performance. You're fully committed and it's just wonderful to see, with performers out there and a lot of people that are performing now, kind of learning how to cope with this high expectation or putting expectations on themselves to perform a certain way or be a certain way. What have you done to learn how to, you know, cope with expectations of other people, to kind of feel less stressed, because it's really easy to go into our heads and think that we are putting these expectations on ourselves or for other people. How have you kind of coped with learning with that?

Speaker 1: 26:13

Yeah, I think this role in particular for me, because it's my dream role. I think most of the expectations came from my own expectations. Once I was able to get over the fact that everybody in the audience has a different opinion. Everybody has their own interpretation of a show or their own opinion about how the show went down. Every ensemble member has a different opinion. Every director or producer has a different opinion. Once I got over that, it still lingered because I didn't allow myself to get rid of my own ridiculous expectations of myself and I think I project opinions onto myself like I fabricate what people think of me but they don't actually think of me that way. Once I realized that it was all in here but dealing with it, I think it was just. Honestly, I don't even know if I could pinpoint one thing that helped me do it, but I think one thing for myself would be that I love that each individual has something unique about them that they themselves could only bring.

Speaker 1: 27:33

And if I leave that in myself, then I don't think I could be proud of what I do. But I am proud of what I do because what I give is something someone else can't give. And trusting in my uniqueness and believing in my uniqueness was one way that expectations wasn't even a thing anymore. Expectations is just something I measure myself by or comparing myself by to other people. But if I believe that I'm unique and I choose to tell this story in this way, then that's what I'll commit to fully and that's what I'll choose to believe for the show or just in general.

Speaker 2: 28:15

That's beautiful. Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you so much for sharing. Oh well, it's been so awesome speaking with you today and, for any listeners out there, Abigail and I this is actually our first time meeting live. I mean, I've seen her perform and be wonderful, but it's just been an absolute treat to have you on the show today a different type of show and I would love to ask a question that I ask each and everyone that comes on the show, and that is if you could give yourself any advice, for before starting your career, which wasn't too long ago, what advice would you give yourself?

Speaker 1: 28:55

Oh, I would say everything's going to be okay, it all works out. Even if today is a bad day, it will work out. You'll wake up and drink your hot tea.

Speaker 2: 29:07

I love that we're going to get some hot tea in the studio. Maybe next time you're on we'll get some hot tea and we'll chat over some tea.

Speaker 1: 29:15

Love that.

Speaker 2: 29:16

Thank you, Taylor, for having me, of course, absolute pleasure. And for anyone out there that has questions for Abigail, you can email us at infoatthedivecomau and we'll get your answers over to Abigail and we'll help you in any way we can. Yeah, thank you so much for being on the show, abigail.

Speaker 1: 29:34

Of course it's my pleasure. Thanks, taylor.

Speaker 2: 29:38

Yay. Thank you so much for listening into today's podcast episode with Abigail. We absolutely loved chatting together and if you have any questions for us or myself, you can email us at infoatthedivecomau. As always. If you haven't checked out our website, we have a website that is made for performers. We have weekly resources, free resources on there and lots of information to just help you get from where you are to where you want to be as a performer. So if you haven't checked it out, go to wwwthedivecomau. If you'd like today's episode, please share it with a friend and like, comment and leave us a review. I'm sending so much love to your day and until next time, keep shining on that stage and I'll see you on the next one.