This is called auto-suggestion, if you want to know, and it is a self-starter, too, and makes the wheels of success go 'round. Step on it! It is good for every performance.
Be satisfied with small beginnings at first. Exhibit your work in public whenever you can, to gain confidence and experience. Keep your eye on Broadway and work toward that great thoroughfare, of course—all dancers do that—but don't think of making your first appearance there. The farther away from Broadway you make your first appearance the better it will be. Learn the art of costuming yourself for your part, and learn the art of makeup. They come next in importance to the actual dances themselves that you are patiently practicing. When you start out, take with you a knowledge of dress and makeup as well as of dancing, and when you are mistress or master of these three arts and make use of them properly, you can go on the professional stage without dread of being overcome by stage fright. No real artist ever is, although any great artist will be a little bit nervous perhaps before making the first entrance in a new play on an important first night. But the sight of the audience cures that.
THE art of acting as it has been known for thousands of years, derives from the dance, and is a direct evolution from the representation of the emotions as portrayed by the primitive dancers. Joy, anger, love, jealousy, hatred, revenge, triumph and defeat were all interpreted in the Grecian dances of the period antedating the introduction of the speaking actors, who told in words and gestures the stories that had formerly been conveyed through the dance. The victorious warriors returned from battle danced to show how they had fought and destroyed the enemy. The hunter described in a dance how he had slain wild animals. The traveller who had visited what to him were distant lands, told of the strange people he had met by imitating them while he danced. Gradually there was evolved the addition of spoken words supplementing the action, accompanied by appropriate gestures and facial expression. Man had discovered his ability to become for the moment another person, and to interpret certain emotions more vividly than through the medium of the dance. The stage became the opportunity not only for the representation of elemental forces and actions, but also for the principal creations of the imagination.