“What will she think of my performance?” I wondered as I stood backstage and spied my mother sitting in the 5th row back. She was not just an average proud parent in the school auditorium. My mother was an actress. I was used to sitting in the audience and watching her sing and dance on stage, and seeing plays that she had directed.
Here I was, in my party dress, six years old, and about to make my theatrical debut in the (not very) important role of “Birthday Guest” in my first grade class play. After the show my mom rushed over and marveled, “When you walked out on stage your presence filled the auditorium!” 
“Really?” I squealed, pleased, but not entirely sure what she meant.
I’m curious now, looking back, what did my mother see? Perhaps that I stayed in character, engaged in the action of the scene even though I spoke only two words. Or was it that I fully believed in the scene being enacted on stage and communicated that out to the audience?
Stage presence requires an all encompassing awareness of what is externally and internally happening in the moment, caught up in an imaginary reality while also being witnessed. It is about projecting one’s energy into that net of space shared with an audience – perhaps what some people call “casting a spell.”
As a storyteller I experience stories coming through me, kinesthetically and emotionally. Simultaneously, I hold an awareness of how the story is interacting with my listeners. As I share vivid, intangible imagery with my listeners I am in the moment. Present.
Of course I didn’t know all that when I was six years old and on stage for the first time! Here is my story about that day, which I told recently at the Close to Home Conference at the JFK Library and Museum: