Sophia Walker posted a message to Facebook as encouragement to her fellow Fringe performers. We liked it, and with her permission are re-publishing it here.
This is what we love, guys. This is our passion. This is why, when we wake up at four in the morning fucking terrified in a cold sweat about money or bills or affording food, we stay working in the arts.
It's August 1st, so the fear is real.
Fringers... a few people have kindly, misguidedly, asked my advice, they didn't set me on fire for what I said, indeed they ordered me to repost some version of it here: The Fringe, other than financially, isn't make or break (most especially the Free Fringe). There is too much noise, too many shows, too much choice to fail in a big way. If it goes horribly, no one will come. That's it. And there won't be word of mouth, so word won't spread. Which is great! And it means it's not like a bad show, or more accurately an unpopular show, matters worth a damn as of September 1st. It doesn't.
There is no failing, here (once you ignore the pesky money). There's only experiments that don't go quite how you want, and you learning how to think on your feet and deal with that. The Fringe is massive, and that's the beauty: with something this big, the only thing you can do is succeed.
If your show is great, you will get buzz and noise and press and bums on seats and all of that lovely stuff. Either do brilliantly, or play to small rooms. There is no bad option here! No worst-case scenario. We go to the Fringe to do what we love (if you don't love what you do, umm, the Fringe will prove... challenging), and we get to do it in a pretty pure form: you, your voice, your words, a dark room/possibly cupboard, and some seats. That's it. It's brilliant.
This is what we love, guys. This is our passion. This is why, when we wake up at four in the morning fucking terrified in a cold sweat about money or bills or affording food, we stay working in the arts.
For the next month, forget the pressure. Forget meeting some standard, forget comparing how well you're doing to everyone else, just use this three weeks to fall back in love with what you do. That's all that matters. Remind yourself why you do this. Strip it back to a room, a voice, an audience and just relish.
The Fringe is an amazing experience, we're fortunate to have it. So really throw yourself into it. And not the bullshit part, not the luvvies running around crying cause they dropped a flyer or the people propping up the bar telling everyone who isn't listening how amazing they are and that this year is their big break.
Throw yourself in to the show, to the craft, to 55 minutes in a room with strangers. Throw yourself into how much fun this is going to be. Cause it will. We love this, and we're about to do it daily for three weeks. Fuck yeah. So yeah... drop your ego now, you definitely don't need it and if you bring it, it just makes Fringe life harder (trust me, my ego is massive. Do you have any idea how tiring it was dragging that thing up and down the Royal Mile all day last year?); get regular hugs from your fellow Fringers, we are all in this together and we do genuinely support each other (at least in PBH. And if you need a friendly hug, come find a PBHer, we're a lovely lot).
Know there is no failure (just keep ignoring that pesky money thing); if possible, enjoy it. You love this or you wouldn't be doing it. So... love it.
Sophia appears in Cult Friction at the Electric Circus, 10th-28th August (not Sunday or Monday) 5:30pm (55m).
