The speech is over. The crowd’s warmed up. It’s time to step out and start the show. But—shoot!—the light cues are all wrong and the guy in the booth is apparently not in the booth anymore. Oh well, the show must go on. Time to play the right notes and pretend everything’s fine.
Walking out onto that stage, I was reminded of a recent creative presentation, where for some stupid reason, my PowerPoint was flaking out. The animations weren’t working. I felt like an idiot. But I kept going, expressed the idea just fine, and the client didn’t seem too upset. Sometimes the details we work so hard to iron out just don’t matter that much.
And so I strummed my guitar and set the scene. My costars came on and worked their magic. And eventually, the lights caught up. It’s an incredible thing, but I think my day job as an associate creative director had prepared me for this moment. And even more incredibly, my time on the stage has made me better at creative directing. In a weird Columbian Exchange of imaginative effort and human relation, these two disparate worlds provide new ways of thinking and improving one another. Here are a few lessons on creative direction that I picked up from working on and performing in an Off-Broadway musical this summer.
Embrace the nerves
I’ve been performing on stage since I was six years old. I started with classical guitar. Then I got into theatre: Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, Old Gremio in the Taming of the Shrew. I was in jazz band, orchestra, and a comedy rock quartet. I’ve played preschools and retirement homes, empty dive bars and legendary venues, grad parties and funerals. And still, without fail, I get visibly, violently stressed out before performing.
My hands shake like crazy, my stomach sinks, and my voice tremors a bit. Same thing for client presentations. It happens every time. You’d think by now I’d be used to it! And I am, sort of. I can’t control my physiological responses to the stress of the spotlight. But I can control my fear of it. I’ve learned to embrace that roller coaster feeling and do my best to prepare for it. I know it will pass, so I might as well be okay with it happening. And with a glass of water to calm my voice, and a classy jacket to cover my sweat, it’ll all be okay when they clap in the end.
Get weird with it
The play I was in this summer was called Echo and Narcissus Blast Third Eye Blind Outside a Diner in New Jersey at 2 AM. It was a heavy exploration of love and loss and regret. I was in charge of the live musical accompaniment. I had a few lines, too, but mainly I was there to set the scene with my guitar. That meant conjuring nostalgic nineties hits when the characters were partying in the past and strumming ambient wave sounds when they’re arguing on the beach.
Because the play shifts in time, I considered crafting a swoopy-woopy wibbly-wobbly guitar sound effect to signify temporal jumps. It sounded like a melted cassette player that was screaming at you to stop. It was really weird, and I didn’t think the audience would get it, so I shelved it. But one rehearsal I tried it out just for fun. The director loved it! I should have trusted my gut and blasted the weird sound from the very start!
Similarly, I find some ideas for creative concepts feel a little too creative at first. “No way will the client go for this stuff,” I think. “Better present a safe version instead.” But more often than not, it turns out the client was craving a weirder direction all along! Yes, it’s good to have a backup; but even if they don’t go with the crazy choice, they respect the team that’s unafraid to swing big and switch things up.
Learn how to listen
This is far and away the most important lesson I took from the stage, and it’s the one thing I want everyone in advertising to know. LISTEN. Listen to your audience. Listen to your peers. Listen to your account directors and clients and designers and social media managers and whoever else is around.
One day during the second week of performances, one of the lead actors came in with a really hoarse voice. Uh oh! But that’s the thing with a live accompanist—I could listen and play quietly every time he had a line, and then bring it up louder when others were projecting and screaming. I had to alter my performance night after night, minute by minute, based on the choices and condition of the actors on stage.
It made me realize that this is an essential life skill. Every single thing anybody says to me, I need to take and weave into my intentions and actions. If a client is mentioning something that they dislike, I can remember that for next time. If my wife mentions she’s craving Indian food, well okay, I’ll grab some tika masala sauce at the store next week.
It sounds so stupidly obvious to say that you should listen. But so many people—in marketing, in theatre, in life—fail at this. I have failed at this. Many, many times. Real listening is hard. You have to process what they’re saying, internalize it, graft it to things you already know and feel, and make it make sense to you. If it doesn’t make sense, if the signal is getting lost, you need to ask follow-up questions. Don’t be afraid of sounding like an idiot. Don’t be afraid to say, “I’m sorry, I missed that, can you say it again?”
And that’s the most important thing I have to say about that. There are more lessons to be learned, I’m sure of it. So, fingers crossed I ace my next audition. Till then, I’ll take my exit, stage left.