People in performance short of time? That's scary! (8)
I believe the answer is:
menacing
'scary' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'people in performance short of time?' is the wordplay.
'people in performance' becomes 'men' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'short of' means to remove the first letter (I've seen 'short' mean this).
'time?' becomes 'pacing' (pacing is a kind of time).
'pacing' with its first letter taken off is 'acing'.
'men'+'acing'='MENACING'
'that's' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for menacing that I've seen before include "Scary" , "Suggesting danger" , "Intimidating" , "Threatening" , "Ominous" .)