'You're almost naked up there': What terrifies one comedian about stand-up is also what draws her in

"[I]t's really a miracle that anyone can override dread because it is all consuming," said comedian Danita Steinberg.

Steinberg has been doing stand-up for almost three years now, but dread still kicks in the morning of every show.

"I really feel it...vibrate through my entire body, especially as the hour comes closer to performing...," she told Out in the Open. 

"It's in my mind that I want to cancel and I don't want to go up there. It's really an argument with myself until, you know, the moment I get up on stage and I say, 'Hey, how are you?'

The flipside of dread

For Steinberg, precisely what scares her about stand-up is precisely what she loves about it.

"What's dreadful about being up on stage by myself is just that, I'm by myself. It's a really interesting thing to go up on stage and demand attention and to put that out into the world that you're worth attention," she said. 

I think the intensity of the dread makes the intensity of doing it even better.-Danita Steinberg 

That's part of the allure.

"There's nothing scarier than being on stage and sharing your perspective with a group of strangers, but that's also what's so powerful and rewarding about it." 

Though Steinberg feels dread before every performance and self-doubt after, the power she feels during a performance makes her override her fears.

"During, I just feel so present. And the second I get my first laugh, my nervousness and my dread just totally melt away."

Steinberg says "the dread and the love of doing comedy" is part of the same continuum.

"I think the intensity of the dread makes the intensity of doing it even better."

​This story appears in the Out in the Open episode "Sense of Dread."