Part One and Two of Anita's Interview was conducted on September 22, 2023 at Casey Childs' Apartment

Part Three of Anita's Interview was conducted on May 17, 2024 at Ms. Hollander's Apartment

Anita Hollander is an American actress, singer, dancer, composer, lyricist, playwright, director, writer and teacher.  The loss of her left leg in her 20s brought her into the world of ‘disability’ which she says made her unique with access to opportunities she would not have had otherwise and brought her into the position of advocacy for universal diversity, universal accessibility, and universal design.  She has composed music for established works; THE TROJAN WOMEN (1981), JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE & WELL (new lyrics, 1982), CLOUD NINE (1987): Music; HERE I STAND (1968), STILL STANDING (1993), WHITE BIRD (2002), WALKING TO CANADA (2003): Music & Lyrics; OSCAR WILDE: BETWEEN PASSION & POETRY (1979), and so forth.  Work Hollander performed in include: OSCAR WILDE: BETWEEN PASSION AND POETRY(1979), BYZANTIUM (A VISION) (1988-90), CAMP MEETING (1984), BRECHT ON BRECHT (1992),WOYZECK (1992), STILL STANDING (1993), BODY SONGS (1994), HERE I STAND (1986), EBENEZER(1997), GRETTY GOOD TIME (1998), BOOK OF JOB: 9/11 (2001), OPERA AMERICA (2001), AT SAID(2006), ADs  (2009), IN SECURITY (2009), A NERVOUS SMILE (2009), BASS FOR PICASSO (2011), ARTIFICIAL JUNGLE (2017).  Musicals and plays directed by Hollander include:  THICKER THAN WATER,THE FISHING LESSON, EBENEZER, HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY KEEP MEN OUT OF YOUR LIFE, and The Village Temple Children’s Choir.  Hollander has recorded music and been published.  Hollander’s awards include ASCAP Popular Music Awards (1986-2004), Bistro Award for Outstanding Female Vocalist (performing original compositions) (1985), Hall of Fame Inductee – Shaker Heights Alumni Association (1987), American Cancer Society Special Courage Award (1988), Helen Hayes Award Nomination (Outstanding Female Lead in a Musical) (1997), and STILL STANDING that was performed at The White House.  

Anita Hollander’s grandmother was in Vaudeville and died before she was born.  She feels she is the reincarnation of her grandmother and from the age of 4 performed songs from Broadway albums, and at age 8 she performed in her first Equity production at Musicarnival, an Equity summer stock theater.  While in Cleveland’s Shaker Heights High School, she continued her professional career performing at the Fairmount Center for the Arts and Halle Theatre, to name a few, working with professional artists, and viewing national companies and shows at The Cleveland Playhouse where she also was part of its youth theater.  She then went to Carnegie Mellon which gave her training and a network on which she has relied ever since.  Hollander auditioned for LAMDA’s one-year International Program.  She was one of four women selected out of the thousand who applied, along with eleven men.  The year before she had lost the use of her leg to cancer and its treatment and auditioned with a leg brace.  The British auditioners could see the brace and were very excited as their revered actress Anna Caldwell-Marshall had a ‘withered leg’ and also wore a brace.  This was the first time Hollander could see that having a ‘disability’ made you unique and might ‘get you into a place where somebody else could not have gone.’  The British have always been ahead of us in their appreciation of artists with disabilities.  After her year she was asked to stay on for another year and tour with the class a year younger than hers.  While in London she performed on the West End in Sunset by Isaac Babel.  She also continued to work in Copenhagen’s Mermaid Theatre.  Hollander now considered herself a ‘professional’ and out of school.  In England she wrote lyrics and music for Oscar Wilde: Between Passion and Poetry in collaboration with Nigel Hawthorne (brought to New York’s South Street Theatre), and when on tour in Europe she used her training to train the voices of those in her troupe.  Returning to Boston, she worked with experimental theater groups like The Actors’ Space with Anne Bogart and Next Move Unlimited Theatre Company who hired actors with and without ‘disabilities.’  In New York, she joined BMI and ASCAP’s musical theater workshops and got jobs from composers and lyricists in performing their work while also teaching voice at New York University.  She developed a cabaret act, opening at Palsson’s Supper Club, highlighting the work of these composers and lyricists while writing songs about her own personal journey.  This musical journey, STILL STANDING, explored her life as a professionally trained child in theater and her struggle for survival in youth from cancer and the eventual loss of one leg in her 20s.