Sara Solovitch's "Playing Scared"

Sara Solovitch is a journalist, a mother, a gardener, a voracious reader, a hiker, and a really good cook. She's also a classical pianist, which is what led her to write Playing Scared: A History and Memoir of Stage Fright. The memoir chronicles her yearlong journey to understand and overcome a lifetime of performance anxiety, beginning with a childhood full of disastrous performances and ending with an hour-long concert the day before her 60th birthday.

Here Solovitch dreamcasts the lead for an adaptation of Playing Scared:

A lot of my friends have asked me who would play me in the movie version of my book. What woman of a certain age � brash yet vulnerable, willing to face her demons � is up to the role? I initially thought of Susan Sarandon, the bad girl in Bull Durham. But after discovering that Blythe Danner has some audience issues (she�s been known to buoy her spirits before a play by standing behind the stage curtain and screaming "Go out and maim them�), I think she�d be the perfect person.

Visit Sara Solovitch's website.

--Marshal Zeringue