Kurt Andersen Faces His Fears

Onstage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Kurt Andersen looks out at the largest live audience ever for a Studio 360 show — and feels a bit nervous. He remembers his father-in-law, a veteran of D-Day who survived a German bullet to the head. “He had that stoic, Greatest Generation thing,” Kurt says. Stage fright doesn’t seem so bad, compared with getting shot at by Nazis.

We’re all subject to “those nagging voices in the back of your head that can cripple you — or, if you’re lucky, sometimes inspire great work,” Kurt says. “Artists use fear in all kinds of ways. Any story or song needs a bit of tension to keep us on tenterhooks.”