The performing arts industry is full of advice for aspiring actors, from educators teaching at drama schools and workshops, to fellow performers like me sharing their own experience (cue a cheeky plug for my YouTube Channel and my articles for Spotlight and Backstage).
A lot of this advice tends to be aimed at 'beginners' who are new to the industry or to a specific skill within the performing arts. But when I was at drama school, I received one piece of advice that has continued to pay dividends over my 8 years as a professional actor.
This particular piece of advice was given to me by Mary Hammond, the founder of the Musical Theatre Course at The Royal Academy of Music (RAM). When I trained there, Mary was no longer the head of the course, but she was still teaching Integration Class (a.k.a. Acting Through Song). This was a group class where we'd each bring a song and, essentially, be coached on how to perform it better.
For context, I don't believe Mary ever gave me a direct piece of advice that I found particularly insightful or encouraging. She was definitely a teacher who, in my opinion, had her favourites and I was not one of them. But the beauty of group classes is that you can learn from everyone's feedback. And this was the one gem of hers that has stuck with me over the years:
You can only sing with the voice you have.
If you've never had to sing on stage, this sentence may seem obvious. Of course you can only sing with the voice you have - who else's voice would you sing with? But when you train in musical theatre, singing makes up the majority of your classes. At RAM we were drilled on our technique. We were constantly learning new songs for lessons, classes and projects. And this intense environment fostered a culture of perfectionism: of always striving for the perfect placement of a note, the complete mastery of a vocal quality, to prove you're worthy of being among your peers and on a West End stage.
But here's the thing: performers are human. Sometimes we get sick or breath something in onstage (both of which have happened to me - more on that later). Sometimes we have an unexpected emotional reaction and are caught off guard. And all of these things can affect the voice in ways we may be unable to control. We go out of tune or our voice cracks or we loose our voice all together. How do you find the courage to keep going in spite of these setbacks? How do you console yourself when you give a performance that's not your best through no fault of your own?
You remember: You can only sing with the voice you have.
This advice helped me the most during a short tour at the end of 2019. I was in a one-woman show called Lady of Jazz about a 1920s jazz singer, and the final leg of the tour was three nights at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester. I don't know what I'd caught, but during those last three days I almost completely lost my voice, to the point where we considered cancelling one of the shows. I made the decision to go ahead, we transposed and cut down almost all of the numbers and I went on.
It was the hardest thing I've ever done. It's hard to describe how upsetting and frustrating it is to have no control over your voice. I literally shed a few tears (there was a point in the show where I changed costume behind a screen and I had a silent 5 second cry before going back on - luckily the emotion worked with the action).
But the audience apparently (I was, honestly, incredulous) didn't notice. They loved the show. They thought I was fantastic. I'd invited a director I'd worked with before to the show, and he gave me a big hug afterwards because he knew I was ill, but the friend he was with insisted that he wouldn't have known.
More importantly, I was able to be happy with the performance I gave with the voice I had. Would I have preferred to end the run on a high and in perfect vocal health? Of course. But I was content with and proud of the performance I was able to give in the circumstances. And I've since had even more compassion for other performers when they have vocal hiccups in performance.
This blog is not to say that, as singers, we should wing it and not practice our technique or warm up or take precautions to be in the best voice possible. Far from it. In fact, I'm sure that my vocal technique was the reason I could perform at all in that situation. But you also have to give yourself grace. Perfection is unachievable. All you can do is give yourself the tools to do your best, whatever voice you have on the day.
What's the best piece of advice you've ever received, as a performer, theatre maker or in general? Share your wisdom in the comments below.
PS. I mentioned the situation of breathing something in on stage. This happened to me during a Christmas Show, an adaptation of The Nutcracker. I had to blow some feathers out of an open book in the middle of the first big song when the toys are coming to life, and I breathed in a bit of feather fluff and spent the rest of the song trying to sing through a coughing fit. Who said showbiz isn't glamorous?