Playing Scared

May 4, 2015
Solovitch, who once pursued a career as a concert pianist, recounts her decades-long struggle to overcome the devastating and crippling stage fright that forced her to quit the piano at age 19. After 30 years, Solovitch, a former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, takes it up again at her youngest son’s insistence. With the help of a caring teacher, she begins to practice in new ways and realizes she’s “learning to play for the first time in my life.” But she’s still unable to perform for an audience. After years of study, Solovitch agrees to give a concert at home for three people, which is a disaster. She then decides to give herself a year to get ready to perform a recital for her 60th birthday. Along the way she examines some of the psychological underpinnings of her condition (including a demanding mother who uprooted the family from Canada so that Solovitch could attend a conservatory in New York), discovers the benefits of beta blockers, tries exposure therapy (playing the piano at her local airport), and talks to well known sufferers, including former L.A. Dodger Steve Sax, who had a legendary case of “the yips” after being named Rookie of the Year. It’s a tough road, and readers will find her story fascinating. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel and Goderich Literary.

April 15, 2015
A debut memoir by a health and medical journalist about the stage fright that forced her to forsake her promise as a musical prodigy. Interspersed with her own story, Solovitch provides plenty of context on performance anxiety in general: its roots (both in the individual and in the culture), its history of treatment, and its pervasiveness. To Carl Jung, "stage fright is a primal fear, awakening archetypal memories of ourselves as herd animals thrust outside the safety of the pack. Our predators-the lions, the sharks, the audience-smell our vulnerability and hover nearby, waiting for that one mistake." It is more common than commonly admitted among musicians and athletes, it often involves perfection that can never be achieved, and it frequently begins with the high expectations of dominating parents. The author suggests that the story of Moses, "who expressed understandable anxiety when asked by God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt," represents the earliest narrative of stage fright, a term that was first used by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Solovitch shows the frequency of its manifestations, from the pulpit to the urinal ("shy bladder syndrome," more common among men than women), from the baseball diamond to the bedroom. The author discusses her interviews with Steve Blass and Steve Sax, two baseball players who were inexplicably unable to throw straight in front of a crowd (the latter recovered, the former retired). But throughout the wide expanse of this examination is the thread of Solovitch's own experience, as she prepared to play piano in a public recital to commemorate her 60th birthday and gave herself a full year to make herself confident, consulting piano teachers, sports psychologists, and other musicians who have dealt with and overcome similar jitters. For those who similarly suffer, and they are legion, the book suggests, the memoir offers comfort and hope.

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