롤강의

 Actor-director-composer-playwright Anita Hollander discusses her favorite roles (including one where she played a three-legged cat, then a one-legged dance hall girl). Anita reveals that sometimes her disability is an asset rather than a liability in performing demanding acting roles 롤강의.

Susan Dansby: Inform us about your preferred acting role.

Anita Hollander: I've two favorites. The very first one being when I played Grizabella in Cats.I wasn't a big fan of the show Cats; but I played Grizabella - usually the one who sings "Memory" - as a three-legged cat.

When I obtained the job, the producer and the director and I talked and I said, "You understand, why don't we only have me, au naturel, as a three- legged cat?" A pet who's gone out there on the planet and lost her leg and came back and everybody is kind of freaked out and then, she sings this song about 'if you touch me, you'll understand what happiness is.' And it brings in an entire new meaning when this cat has experienced life and nobody should feel sorry for her.

And it had been so perfect, and most of us agreed that which was an effective way to complete it. And it really made the entire experience of Cats an entire different thing, brought it to an entire different level where everybody just really experienced something special. And which was a real favorite of mine.

The other favorite of mine is a function that I obtained a Helen Hayes award nomination for down in Washington. And which was a world premiere musical called The Fifth Season where I played a dance hall girl who's running far from a sweetheart who shot her in the leg. And by the second act she loses her leg - she should have her leg amputated out in the wilderness. She's a homesteader and she's trying to get some land of her very own; and the ladies around her have to help her lose her leg due to the gunshot wound.

So in the first act, I'm dancing on the bar top, and I'm singing, and I'm doing all of this stuff. And then, in the second act, I've one leg. And audiences debated in the lobby how they did the one-legged thing as the actress couldn't have one leg because she danced in the first act and most of us saw both legs. So they have to be covering it somehow. How did they do this? Because there was a big fight scene and everything with me with one leg; and people couldn't find out where I was hiding my other leg. But the funny thing about which was how I obtained that job.

Susan Dansby: Yes, how did you receive that job?

Anita Hollander: It's certainly one of my favorite stories because I'd sung many times at [New York University] for the musical theater writers, where they generate professional singers and actors to present the project that the writers work on. And both of these women, a composer and a lyricist, had had me can be found in and sing some stuff with Cass Morgan - another wonderful musical theatre person.

Then, several years went by, and I obtained a telephone call from both of these people - this composer and lyricist team - who said, "We'd love you to complete a reading of our new musical. It's likely to be down in Maryland (I are now living in New York City). So we'd bring you down if you're interested. You understand, you're just so perfect, we'd like you to achieve this and it's this wonderful story of the dance hall girl who gets shot, and she runs far from Oklahoma to go to South Dakota, and she loses her leg. It's an extraordinary true story of the West.

I said, "This is great!" And I said, "Do you want me to take my leg off in the second half of the reading?" (It was staged reading.) And there was silence - total silence on the phone line. And I believed, "Oh, what did I do, what did I do?" I said, "Are you guys, okay?" And they said, "Guess what happens, can we get back, can we only call you in a few minutes?" Then, they hung up and I believed, "Oh, what did I do?" And they called me back a few minutes later and said, "Anita we didn't know you'd one leg. We just knew your voice was the voice we remembered as an ideal voice. You've got this big bold voice. We loved your voice, then. We wish to contain it now. And we'd no idea that you had one leg. And develop you're not offended, because that's not why we called you."

And I said, "Are you kidding? How many roles are actually that great for me to have two legs in the first act, and one leg in the second, and to sing and to do something?" I said, "You couldn't have given me a better compliment." And then, I did the reading down in Maryland. And then, they chose the piece to complete at the Olney Theatre - also in Maryland - in regards to a year after that. And the funny thing was they made me audition again for the role.

And when I walked out from the room, the musical director thought to the director and the casting director, and the producer, "Why are we sitting here speaking about this? She is an ideal person with this role. There is no discussion. We must cast this woman and stop speaking about it." And all of them agreed that well, obviously it's perfect. If the role can be an amputee who is able to sing and dance and act, and we have an amputee actress who is able to sing and dance and act sitting inside our room, there's no question. So it had been very funny.

Susan Dansby: I just think it's such a great exemplory instance of how the thing you think will prevent you; the thing you think will close doors in your face is the thing, invariably, that opens doors for you.

Anita Hollander: It's very true oftentimes; it's been an asset for me on many levels, not always.

Susan Dansby: Not always.

Anita Hollander: There are actual disabled roles that I was not cast in. I was auditioned because of it and they went for a non-disabled actor for the role although they'd the authentic, accurate, person (actress) in the room. So it hasn't always worked within my favor but when it's, I call it an asset. I've always felt in this way - that why is me unique is an asset even when I don't get other jobs. In fact, on my resume tend to be more roles that aren't considered disabled at all. Blanche, in Brighton Beach Memoirs.Golde. Emma Goldman. Each one of these roles that I've done, nobody ever considers them disabled. They weren't disabled. If they're historical roles, they weren't disabled. Even in the stories or if it's fictional roles - not disabled.

However, it doesn't hurt to really have a person for the reason that role because it's not specific, one of the ways or the other. And I've a good artificial leg and I've tapped-danced in Nunsense and all of the Nunsense musicals. And been goofy and done choreography and really basically passed as a two-legged persons - as a non- disabled person.

Like in Damn Yankees, [when I was] playing Meg, the wife, the cast would often say in my experience, "We always forget that you've one leg because you zip on to that stage and zip cool off again."

Susan Dansby: Well, and I believe the other way that being in a minority becomes an asset is that you go in knowing, "Okay, there could be some odds against me here."롤강의