Professional Ghost Stories

The London Run I Talked Myself Out of

photo by Holly Czuba Photography

The story I’m about to tell you was proof that I was capable of ruining my own success.

It happened in 2012.

That year I took my one-woman show, Dirty Barbie and Other Girlhood Tales, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. If you’ve never done the Fringe, it’s hard to explain the scale of the undertaking. It’s not just a festival — it’s a theatre mecca, a test of how bad do you really want this because it’s an expensive obstacle course of do’s and don’ts, six months of preparation for a month-long run, and an all-in deal — half-assing is punished.

It’s heaven, hell and good hard work.

With the help of friends, family, and believers in the show, we raised nearly $20,000 to get there. A production team of 7 was assembled to produce, run and promote the show. We lived in Scotland for a month in a “flat” with the cutest yellow kitchen. We learned how to load-in and load out in 5 minutes on each end.

The summer I went there were over 2,500 other shows. You’re in competition for butts in the seats, reviewers, and golden kisses from the theatre gods.

I performed every day for 28 days.

a photo shoot in Edinburgh

During many of the hours when I wasn’t performing, we were out on the streets handing flyers to strangers. “Hi! Are you looking for a show tonight?” “Hi! Wanna talk about Barbie?” Chatting up anyone who would pause. Tourists. Students. Actors trying to give me a flyer. People trying to find a bar.

The Fringe has a mythology around it: if the right person sees your show, it can open doors. Another run. Another city. Clouds part and angels sing. A future for the piece.

You hope. You hustle.

I got glowing reviews, new friends, and more superstitious, but alas, no offers for the next run. Sigh.

Then, in the third week of the run, it happened.

A producer from a prestigious theatre in London came to see the show.

She loved it, she said. She stayed afterward to talk, handing me her card.

She offered me a week-long run in London. I felt…all the things.

When I followed up by email, she wrote back right away, offering run dates: the last week in November. Thanksgiving week.

I accepted.

And for a few days, it felt like the kind of thing that artists work years for.

Then the thoughts started.

It’s selfish to run off to London during the holidays.

You’ll have to raise all the money again.

Flights. Housing. Food.

You’re already exhausted.

All this and London might send you and your Barbies squealing wee wee wee all the way home.

Another thought landed harder. My son had just started college. That Thanksgiving would be his first break home.

You are a bad mother.

On that day of that dark thought my husband was dropping him off at school — just the two of them.

Then something else happened.

My father-in-law, who had been sick for a year, died.

I was worried, exhausted, and thousands of miles from home.

One morning near the end of my run at the Fringe, I did something that still surprises me: I emailed the producer and asked if we could move the run to another date.

She said

There’s not another date.

I said

I can’t do the week of Thanksgiving.

Poof. The offer disappeared. Just like that.

When I told my husband what I’d done, he was shocked.

“A London run?” he said. “We would have figured it out.” Flights. Money. Holidays. All of it.

Nope. Too late for figuring it out together like a couple on The Amazing Race.

I’d made the decision alone.

For years, the story I just told you was proof that I was capable of ruining my own success.

One of the biggest professional mistakes I’d ever made. Maybe the biggest, I’d tell myself. I’d imagine the alternate timeline…my Sliding Doors mind trip: the London run, the reviews, the next opportunity. The career that might have unfolded from there.

Lately I’ve been thinking about it differently.

Yes, I made the decision in a vacuum. And decisions made in isolation — especially when you’re tired, homesick, and overwhelmed — are rarely good ones.

But I’ve also stopped whooping up on myself about it. I’ve stopped the self-torture and strenuous regret.

Because here’s another truth.

The slightest ripple from me — a simple request for a different date — and the opportunity vanished. No conversation. No curiosity. No “Let’s see if we can make this work.” Just gone.

For years I thought the lesson was:

Don’t screw up your opportunities. Shoot your shot.

Now I think the lesson might be:

Don’t make big decisions when you’re exhausted and alone.

Bring someone into the room. A partner. A friend. A collaborator. Someone who can say,

Hold on a minute, dummy.

Maybe there’s another lesson, too. Stop punishing yourself for the person you were in a difficult moment.

We make decisions with the information, energy, and emotional bandwidth we have at the time. Not the clarity we wish we had later.

I think about the London run sometimes. Hardly ever, really. Point is…it no longer feels like a ghost story.

I’ve stopped letting it overshadow the other stories about that time. Like the one about how generous so many people were so that I could take that show overseas. Or the story of how that show, my show, worked with audiences of all ages from all over the world in all states of being from stone cold sober to lunch drunk. The story of how the technical director at the theatre rebuilt the broken projector (that I stupidly checked in my baggage instead of rocking it tenderly in my lap on the flight). The story of how one of my best friends from childhood flew from Denver to Scotland to crew my show for two weeks and run all over Edinburgh with me in the evenings looking for cold cider, amazing Indian food, and hilarious stand-up shows. The story of how much I grew as an actor from performing daily but also from attending over 20 plays in a month. The story of the crazy ladies at the chippy shop down the street. The story of the most incredible August of my life.

The thing about professional regrets: they often linger long after the lesson has been learned.

So I’m curious…what’s the professional ghost story you still wince about?

What would it look like to let yourself off the hook?

photo by Martyn Kyle

Denise Stewart is an Executive Coach specializing in public speaking and executive presence. She helps leaders and teams strengthen their voice, presence, and influence across professional settings. Drawing on a background as a theatre artist and speaker, Denise blends storytelling, performance technique, and leadership communication into practical coaching.

She is a Lecturer at the University of Virginia’s Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, a past Charlottesville TEDx speaker and current TEDx speaker coach, and a frequent keynote speaker and emcee. Her one-woman show Dirty Barbie and Other Girlhood Tales toured internationally, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and NYC’s 59E59 Theatre.