A Little Confidence is a Dangerous Thing
By JL Copeland
Alright?
Here’s some 60s garage rock for you wild men (and women):
Readers who’ve been here for a while may remember my experience at an audition for the Seoul Players 10 Minute Play Festival last year.
Well, audition time had rolled around again.
I was a little hesitant about signing up for it this year. Although it was a marvellous experience, it took a lot of time and energy.
As someone who calls themselves a writer, I don’t actually feel like I do enough writing (although, does any writer?).
Anyway, I’d committed to putting that right after I got back from the UK. There was no better time: I’d finished my novel, Nicksgate, and was ready to start laying the groundwork for the next book.
I was also reluctant to sign up for the audition as I’d vowed to spend more quality time with my wife and kids (ha!).
But the road to hell and good intentions and all that. I signed up.
I was strangely calm about the audition, confident, even. I didn’t have a proper look at the sides (short scenes used in the group audition) until the day before. You may think that my lack of nervousness was encouraging.
But as someone who’s rarely had a smidgen of confidence with anything, if there’s one thing life has taught me, is that for any important test, being nervous forecasts calm seas.
Whereas confidence is a sign that there’s a typhoon of turds bearing down on the good ship JL.
As previously mentioned, despite 16 years of teaching the same university class, I still get nervous before the first day of the semester. I take encouragement from this; it means I’m taking it seriously, and taking it seriously for me means preparation, even over-preparation.
The day I walk into the classroom without a care in the world is the day I know I’ve become sloppy, and it’ll be time for my employers to take old JL up to the kimchi shed with the shotgun.
My audition was four days after we landed back in Korea. Jet lag is weird. Just when you think you’re out of it, it pulls you back in (or rather, back out of bed).
The night before the audition, I didn’t sleep a wink.
My anxiety came back with bells on, all that confidence went *POOF*.
I lay there, convinced I was going to fail the audition because I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes open, never mind act. As if I could even act, anyway. I should stay home tomorrow.
I gave up trying to sleep around 3 AM. The rest of the night I read Annie Proulx. That didn’t help. If there’s one author who makes me think, ‘’Why do I even bother with this writing lark?” it’s her. Genius is an over-used word but yeah, she is.
Morning arrived. I necked a cup of tea and two espressos and headed out. On the subway I read my lines, but by the time I got out of the station I was already quivering.
I arrived at the theatre. One of the staff knew about my blog, which didn’t help my nerves.
“Oh, the blog guy.”
I prayed they had a sense of humour.
Half of the directors were directors from last year or actors trying their hand at it. As our little seven-strong cohort sat and the back and waited to be called, I thought I saw one or two flashes of recognition in their eyes.
I’m not a particularly memorable person; I merge into the background, like an underused sandwich toaster.
I was really shaking now, sweating too. This is a good sign, I told myself, not believing a word.
A friendly British woman in my audition group asked where I was from.
I told her.
I asked where she was from.
She told me.
Silence.
I still haven’t got to grips with the art of keeping a conversation going. Good job I don’t teach English conversation. Oh, wait.
We got up on stage and one of the staff warmed up our bodies and voices. On the lip trills, everyone ran up and down the scales while mine malfunctioned.
All that came out of my mouth were weak puffs, like an inebriated stroke victim trying to blow a birthday candle.
We took turns acting out the sides, then it was time for a bit of improvisation.
We were to imagine we were out with our dog, greeting other dog owners.
Great.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a fan of the canines due to a minor childhood trauma.
Then we we’re told to play with the dog. To say I was unfamiliar with this…
They might as well have asked me to show how I apply eyeliner to a bird-eating spider.
Next, we had to be the dog.
I pinched myself. No, this wasn’t a nightmare.
My six cohorts dropped to all fours and yapped around excitedly. I decided to play a languid beast on its last legs (the best kind of dog); I plodded across the stage and slumped on the ground.
We lined up. One director said,
“Now, I want you to be your favourite dog. We all have a dog breed we love.“
Do we?
“I want you to bark like that dog.”
I thought about miaowing under protest. There was no time; I was first.
My sister’s partner, Chris, used to have a dog called Charlie. He’s the only pooch I’ve had around me in the last twenty years.
Don’t ask me what breed. A black one. With white bits. Floppy ears.
That’s as specific as you’re going to get.
But he was a good dog (an oxymoron if I ever heard one): elderly, quiet. In that split second, I realized I wasn’t sure if I had ever even heard him bark.
I made it up.
Afterwards, the director said:
“You must have had some pretty weird dogs.”
Then the directors huddled and discussed their notes.
We did the sides again, each director giving us a different emotion, even if it’s not related to the side: e.g. ‘This time I want you all to be in a hurry.’ That’s doable.
One of the performances I’m most satisfied with is one where I have to pretend I’m desperate for the toilet throughout. That’s easy. I’m usually desperate for the toilet.
For most sides, the directors gave us one simple direction.
But then in a scene where a young man is coming out to his parents, one director told us:
“I want you to be old, like 80s. And I want you to be gangsters. And I want you to be really comfortable with each other. And I want this to be like a regular meeting. And I want you to be really into football and stuff. Go.”
Jesus Christ.
Don’t stop there, mate.
Why not also chuck in that we’re wildebeests who have just completed gender reassignment surgery and the meeting is taking place on the poop deck of the Titanic during the Battle of Trafalgar?
“Once more, with feeling (and more cannonballs).”
As you can probably imagine, that one didn’t go so well.
But I did surprise myself when one director asked everyone in the scene to be progressively sadder. I got really into it—so into it, that by the end my eyes were wet.
Yep, I managed to cry on cue. Never thought I could do that. What can I say, 2025 was a shit year; there was a lot of crying. Guess I bulked up my tear ducts.
No, don’t ask.
The Funtastic Theatre. Where all this drama happened.
Anyway, I came away feeling better than the previous time. There were a lot of bad performances, but a couple of goodies. I hoped it was enough. And if not, well, there’s always next year.
*UPDATE*
So, I’ve been cast in Amy Garner Campbell’s New Tricks, as a delivery driver who, through mistaken identity, is forced to take care of a customer’s talking dog.
I know, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
At least I wasn’t cast as the dog; then I would have really known the universe was laughing at me.
The Seoul Players 10 Minute Play Festival 2026 takes place from November 13th to November 15th, with the finals a week later. When tickets are available, they sell fast, so don’t miss out! Check out Seoul Players for more details and updates.
Anyway, the moral to salvage from all the above guff is: don’t worry about being nervous before whatever important thing you have to do. It’s good to have nerves; it shows you’re probably doing it right, you’re prepared, you’re ready.
Be suspicious of confidence. In the UK—being a reserved bunch of peeps—it’s quite thin on the ground, and unfortunately, usually mistaken for competence.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect says: The less someone knows about something, the more confident they are at it.
I guess the D-K Effect sounds pretty familiar to many people in the world right now, no matter where you live.
Anyway, keep on trucking with whatever you’re doing, and those tremors you feel simply mean everything is peachy. Trust me, smooth is suspect.
Have you ever gone from knee-knockin’ to knocking it out of the park? Hit me up with a comment below.
Check back next time for more bathroom digressions and fortune cookie wisdom.
Speak soon,
JL
PS: Quick update on the Nicksgate query letters. I’ve had a few rejections from agents and one more full request for the manuscript (still waiting on that one, so crossing everything at the mo).
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