The Tranquility in Tragedy

The only place my brain goes quiet is on a stage. It is non-stop, my mind, and too often the perpetual motion machine that it is, is not a kind one. What comes to the forefront in the quiet moments? It is not often beautiful daydreams or confidence or comfort. Even in sleep, my mind has never been a quiet or cheerful place, but one filled with nightmares, recurring and otherwise. I developed an obsession with 'goodness' from a very young age, desperately trying to meld my behavior to a standard of righteousness that meant never making a mistake. Perform, repress, repeat. The lack of empathy toward my own humanity invited so much shame that I began to run off of it. Shame as Fuel. Motivation. A measurement for how well I was or wasn't doing.

It's not an easy thing to verbalize, the suspended animation that seems to happen when I step out on a stage. The entrance into that state is always jarring, as the terror that precedes it by only a breath is always sharp and nearly debilitating. "Stage fright" feels like a trite moniker to put on the nauseated, horrified terror that bubbles to the surface. The loud voices of "I can't do this" or "I don't deserve to be here", mingle expertly with the desire to run away for those last few moments before I feel the lights hit my skin.

The melting away of the shame, the fear, and the insecurity in that moment is like nothing I could ever describe to you, though it won't stop me from trying. There is a peace I encounter in the midst of raw, pure emotion, played out in real time, that is indescribable. I've often wondered if that peace is something "normal" people find within their grasp at "normal" moments, but to me it is ephemeral, rare, and intoxicating. No walls. No judgement. Pure freedom to explore, to feel, to breathe. To live 100% honestly. This feeling is not just a high that I chase, though I readily self-identify as an addict where theatre is concerned. It is so much more about prayer, for me. Meeting the Divine in the space between imagination and visceral truth. Time stops, sounds melt, and for me, my body and my mind are in union in a way unlike any other in my life. There is a weightlessness that occurs somehow simultaneously to the weight of the words that bear the sharpest truths I know.

Bold Girls (2019), w/ Amanda Charles (C) and Charleen Willoughby (R)

Though the act of theatre will always be beautiful, not all theatrical experiences are created equally, and I wish I could appropriately express how difficult it can be to find the really special ones. I've been blessed with so many lovely experiences as a performer, with the bad ones being far outweighed by the ones that bring smiles to my face with their memories. But within the smiles, there are moments that were only lovely, and then there are moments that were life-altering, life-giving, lightning bolts to my existence. The ones that scream out as beacons, and mark the eras of life. These gifts come rarely, and in my particular experience, mostly at a little theatre company called Brigit St Brigit.

How I came to stand in a BSB audition room for the first time is another whole story, that someday I will tell, if permitted, but the relevance only seems important to myself, and I won’t digress into the whole of the history. I remember being nauseous as I walked into the audition room (but this is a common occurrence for my stomach and auditions, and one that I don't expect will ever go away). I had developed a love of cold reading in college, but in that moment the room was both more intimate and more intimidating than I'd imagined. I loved how interactive it was. It wasn’t sixty seconds to perform my piece and then go home to wonder what was thought of it. It was reading different characters, different portions of the script. It was working together, if only just a taste of it. I remember diving into the words with abandon, making choices boldly, and leaving them behind for the next, different choice.

Faith Healer (2025)

I could never fully explain what it is like to be in a rehearsal room with Cathy, if you've never been there. She is one of the fiercest people I know, and will fight with fervor for a deeper truth, if there is even the slightest indication that it can be found. Those of us who know her well, take this tenacious and sharp demand for more as a high and treasured compliment, as it indicates her trust. If she trusts me to rise to it, she will push me to be better, and that push is one of the most valuable gifts I could receive.

I had never experienced such a deep dive into the text with a director before as in that first play with Cathy. It was epic and intoxicating and terrifying and so demanding. Looking back, I can confidently say that Cathy truly changed my life in that first experience with her. She gave me a complete 180 as an actor with a simple session of practicing physical neutral. This process revealed all of those shame-based pleasantries that couldn't release my jaw, my eyebrows, my shoulders, and my posture to be an honest, embodied representation of truth. I was playing at being a human, not simply being one honestly. “You’re smiling.” “No I’m not.” “Yes you are. You just can’t tell. Go all the way to neutral, Melissa. It will feel like grimacing to you, but I promise it’s not.”

Unsurprisingly, it did feel like a grimace at first. I had been smiling. Layering a smile over the top of my feelings without even knowing it. How long had I been doing that? The smile of safety belied my deep need to be seen as “nice”. To withhold flaws and fears and keep the facade of “fine”. But fine is rarely real, at least not when exploring deep and human struggles.

Doubt: A Parable (2025)

And suddenly… I could tell what honesty was. In the moment of coming all the way to neutral, I felt what it was to actually live inside of the character’s exhaustion, frustration, fear, joy, or love, not simply slide the emotion over myself, a safe distance from the reality. I can’t imagine who I would be without this lesson. To say that it changed the trajectory of my journey as an actor, and dare I say, as a human, is an understatement. This was the suspended animation. This was the quiet of letting go. The pleasant, the pleasing, the neat and tidy facade, became no longer a source of safety, but the very thing blocking me from truth. There is a quote by Anais Nin that I’ve loved for many years, that rings true of this season: “and the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud, was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” The shedding of the shame was worth the risk. Those surrounding me were chasing that same brutally honest mirror, and together, we were making the type of work that I desperately wanted to be a part of.

I craved more, and as I dove deeper, I found that the further I had to dig to expose my soul, the more silent the air around me became. The less judgmental the approach of my mind. The less loudly imposter syndrome called, or at least the less I believed it. The more still my soul, ready for the ripples of emotion to push freedom through my veins. The phrase “give me tragedy or give me death” rings through my mind, and though most will view this as macabre and overstated, for me it began to feel synonymous with emotional self-validation and safety.

I think it may have saved my life, that push toward spoken tragedy. My training and my roots were firmly planted in Musical Theatre from my collegiate days, and though a first love that I will always enjoy, that world brings with it an anxiety over vocal technique that never truly leaves. I love to sing, and have some capacity there, but I don’t have “that voice”. And it doesn't go quite as quiet in my mind when I'm acting and trying to sing at the same time. The nagging "it's not good enough" doesn't fully leave. For me, the honesty I can muster isn't quite as honest (with some exceptions, perhaps, but not many).

Molly Sweeney, Backstage w/ Michael Lyon (L) and Scott Working (R) in 2024

As I was gifted more of these roles rooted in heartbreak and struggle, I explored and adventured through trauma and tragedy, and found peace waiting in process. That’s where the falling in love truly happens, for me. Inside the padded room of the rehearsal space. The process of tearing apart our souls together, to welcome in higher truths and deeper realities than we did the day before. How rare to find a whole group of humans that share the willingness and desire to bleed over truth in the form of fables and fictions. We talk about truth in that rehearsal room. About things larger than ourselves. About the world we live in and how we frame it.

I’ve been shocked time and again by how unbelievably understanding and kind my fellow actors, artists, and technicians have been to me, while I have floundered through such formidable emotional roller coasters. We cry, and argue some, in that rehearsal room, but in the best way. I’ve been allowed to pace or to cry or to shout or to sink. No shame to be encountered in chasing hard to find it, and being crippled slightly by what I find. This group embodies what it is to all pull hard toward a singular goal. It is ego-less and devoid of the posturing and drama that can be encountered in artistic spaces. It is collaboration without criticism, a true and pure company of actors.

The whole of my time with BSB has been marked with a disbelief that I find myself where I am. In the room with giants. On stage, being trusted with words that mean everything. Being slowly and surprisingly healed by characters I adored. I have struggled through real life depression and painful growth while trying desperately to get a grasp on material, and once I encountered the truth of it, I’ve simply fallen in love. I’ve prayed over every set as I waited in terror to set foot on that stage each night, and each night, I’ve felt silence tear through me with startling clarity. Peace can be elusive, but I’ve found it time and again under the footlights.

Molly Sweeney, 2024

To have a place like BSB to be challenged- getting to do what for years I had said I would never be good enough to do... Getting to play within the most beautiful words. Getting to experience the interchanging electricity between humans who all ponder together… What a gift it is. Encountering this repertory company of like-minded souls, was like a slow baptism into a new artistic life. A life filled with humor, ferocity, humility, and pure uncut creativity. BSB has changed my life irrevocably. Personally. Professionally. I will never be anything but inexplicably grateful that I stumbled blindly into Cathy’s audition room so many years ago. Little did I know then the tragedy and beauty I would be allowed to savor.

It may still seem strange to most, that the greatest tragedies tend to bring me the most peace. Though they require everything, the very baring of the naked soul (or perhaps because they do)… when I think of purity, of calm, of communion and purpose… I think of those quietest of moments, meeting the Divine out there on a BSB stage.