♪ Opening theme music ♪
Hello, and welcome to this episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation.
My name is Diane Kolin.
This series presents artists, academics, and project leaders who dedicate their
time and energy to a better accessibility for people with disabilities in the arts.
You can find more of these conversations on our website, artsably.com,
which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com.
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Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation with Danielle Hollobaugh, who is a singer,
an actor, and a songwriter living and working in Los Angeles.
You can find the resources mentioned by Danielle Hollobaugh during this episode
on ArtsAbly's website in the blog section.
We were so in love, couldn't get enough.
Everything was perfect.
We kept each other warm, weathered every storm, made it feel so worth it.
But just like a ship sinking quickly, you disappeared like a ghost,
leaving behind all this heartache.
Now I have to face it alone.
The air gets cold.
I hear your voice, but you're not there to hold.
It's like I'm living in a haunted mansion.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome to this new episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation.
Today, I am with Danielle Hollobaugh, who is a singer, an actor, and a songwriter,
and she lives and works in Los Angeles.
Thank you, Danielle, for joining us today.
Thank you for having me.
I know you are a multi-talented person.
You're doing a a lot of things in acting and singing.
I wanted to have a little bit of your background before we know
a little bit more about your work.
Where do you come from?
What is your background?
Did you do some musical studies or what brought you to where you are today?
I'm from Florida.
I grew up very lucky because
my hometown started a theatre program for kids with disabilities.
I got signed up for that, and I got early on a chance to perform on stage.
The first ever number that I did on stage was my friend and I fighting
over who gets to sing the solo.
It was very fitting.
My dad teaches karate.
I do take from him, and he puts on a lot of kickboxing events.
I also started performing at those events pretty early on.
I was having six or seven.
It was really cool.
I got a lot of stage experience that way.
Then by the time I was a teenager, I started competing
and looking for talent showcases.
When I did my first showcase, they were like, You need to start writing too,
because that's the only way that labels are really going to
have any interest in you. So I did.
I started writing and I demoed my first original songs three or four years later.
At that point, I also fell in love with the studio to the point where I realized
that's actually what I want to do is record.
When I found out that being a session singer was a thing, I was like,
Okay, now I've got a more realistic career goal than being a famous pop star.
So I looked for work wherever I could here in Florida.
Then I eventually moved to LA, where I met a lot more producers and
found a lot more resources.
I started working a lot more in the studio and performing less.
I've had some really cool experiences since then.
I'm really happy for the journey that this has taken me on.
When did you start acting?
I started acting in the same vein.
I did plays in stuff in high school, and I finally did my first short film
toward the end.
Then I majored in acting in college, but I had a bad experience with the teacher.
I actually have a little story about how I quit acting
for a long time and came back to it.
But basically, I came back to it because of the pandemic
and wanting something to do.
I'm like, I'm going to take an acting class because I need
to sharpen my skills again.
I fell head over heels and got connected to all sorts of resources
I never had available to me before and built a really cool community.
Now I'm hopefully on the upswing.
I'm interested in this little story you were mentioning.
What was your bad experience in theatre or in acting courses?
When I signed up for my acting class, my teacher actually sent me home with a letter
and he said someone like me could never
pass this class and I should drop it.
Being the spirit that I am, I'm like, I'm not doing that.
Too bad, you're going to deal with me.
But that had a pretty bad effect on me because working with somebody
who doesn't want you there, it bleeds out in different ways.
He wasn't nice to me or encouraging.
I still learned a lot because I really focused on the material,
but he himself broke me down a lot.
So yeah, that was my not so great start into the reality of what Hollywood is.
But did he ever give a reason?
Because of my blindness.
I was fearing that was the case.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, I'm happy you went back to it.
Yeah.
Me too, because I feel more complete.
Good. And so, you're doing that.
Today, you are an accomplished singer and actor.
What are you doing?
What is your everyday life as an actor and a singer?
So
I've done a few short films and commercials and stuff like that as an actor.
Then as a singer, I've been working on...
The last couple of years, I've had a couple of jingles air on TV,
like national TV, which is really cool.
Yeah, right now, literally today, we're working on a batch of songs
to send to an ad agency.
I'm really excited to see how all of that turns out.
I'm in the middle of a lot of writing and recording sessions.
I saw that you had a role in Dhar Mann.
That was 2018? No... When was that?
No, it was last year.
Last year? Okay.
Yeah, that is good because I like this series.
Can you talk more about that episode that you shot with Dhar Mann?
Yeah, I've been an extra for him before, so it was really cool
that they called me back to do this role.
It really highlights the importance of casting authentically
because there were a lot of things in the script that I helped them rework.
Also, just by working with me, they themselves were like,
Okay, this isn't right.
It was really cool to be on set.
It was a big sound stage in Burbank, so that was really cool
because usually I I'll shoot in homes or outdoors or whatever.
To be on that sound stage in Los Angeles was really neat.
Yeah, breaking barriers.
For those who don't know what Dhar Mann does, this series, it really presents
short films of issues in the society that might happen, like bullying
or like treating people a different way.
It's short episodes every time.
It's not that long, right?
Every time, what is the length of one episode, usually?
I think mine was 25 minutes.
Yeah, that's it. It is good.
Then there is really a build-up of a story and something
that always concludes at the end.
I really like that format.
Yeah.
You participated in other movies or series.
But the one that I really had a look at, I saw the different versions or every year
you did a different one, was the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge.
Oh, yes.
Can you talk about your experience on that and also doing it
every year, different scenario, and how does it work for you?
I love it so much because it's really the only program out there that's encouraging
disabled people to tell our own stories.
I like that, as much as I love dramatic acting,
dramatic acting is definitely my favorite, but
I like that they're more focused on the comedy
and lighter side of things.
Every year, they give you a genre, and they give you some
things you have to include in your film,
and you're off to the races.
You start writing your story, and you only have five days
to make a five-minute film.
It's a little bit hectic, but it's so much fun.
The people I've formed friendships with and the allies that I met through
that program are so, so, so valuable.
How many films did you do with them? Three, right?
So far, four. Four?
Mm-hmm. Okay, good.
It's interesting because it's not only about...
It's the process that is interesting.
The five days to do a five minutes -
How do you choose the actors who are going to be part of that film?
In my case, I originally wanted to make one in Florida, but that fell through.
There's an awesome blind actor, Marilee Talkington.
She sponsored a couple of teams, blind teams, for the film challenge.
I e-mailed her.
I applied to be on one of the teams.
It just so happened that three or four of us were in LA
for the time of the challenge.
We actually got to meet in person.
I'd never met other visually impaired actors before in person.
That was just a really cool experience.
In our case, we already assembled a team, and we were going to write based
on the actors in the team.
But I know other people who wrote their script skeleton ahead of time and
did little casting calls and stuff like that.
But in my case, it's either been being on the blind team or just getting with
some friends and doing it that way.
I recognize some of the actors in...
I saw three, and in the three, they were the same actors.
I guess you created a friendship with this team.
Yeah, totally. Very good.
Okay, I want to go back to your music.
I know you are right now
having a few albums or at least
a song that will release soon.
I will ask you to talk a little bit about that,
but I also have a question about...
you told me you were beginning to produce yourself?
Yeah.
The song that's coming out was co-produced by me.
During quarantine, I hired a tutor
because I always recorded my own vocals.
I was working from home a lot more.
I hired someone to teach me the ropes about using a software called Reaper.
Yeah, he taught me to do things I never thought I'd be able to.
Not only did he help me improve my vocal recording, vocal editing, and stuff like that,
which I do in my everyday life, but he also gave me tips and tricks
on putting my music together.
I will say the main producer that I use for most of my music, he also
was helping me just learn things.
I can always go to him if I have any questions.
I wouldn't say that I could produce something totally by myself,
but it's been really cool to have such an involved hand in my own music.
I interviewed someone called Jessica Tomlinson a few weeks ago,
and she's also using Reaper.
I see her in the group.
That's so funny.
It was really interesting because I never heard of Reaper before interviewing her,
and I was able to really have a feel of how important this work is.
I think they have a team called Reapers Without Peepers?
Yes, that's it.
Okay, good.
Now, about your song.
Tell me more about that.
I've produced most of it and then
took it to my producer who cleaned it up
and made it sound awesome.
It's called Mess.
I wrote it in 2021 because that was just a horrible year for me.
It just is about how you kind of
tend to shut yourself in when you're feeling bad.
Society wants you to come out and play, and you're just like,
no, you really don't want to see me like this.
It'll be interesting to hear, to see what people think of it.
When is it released?
It'll be in July, at some point. Okay.
It's going to be available on Spotify, things like that?
Yes. Okay, good.
Okay, great.
Oh, looking forward to it.
I will also post links to your links and Spotify on ArtsAbly's website
so that people can have a look, too, and listen to it.
Awesome.
Okay, I have a question about...
You've been working in disability arts for some time, whether it is with
Easterseals or whether it is with your own experience that you try to carry.
I wanted to ask you what it means to work in disability arts for you.
I think it means so many different things.
My experiences with music and acting are so different.
As a musician, especially as a session musician,
I've never had to disclose a disability, especially when I work from home.
I get hired purely based on my voice and my talent, which is really special.
And
as an actor, it's really forced me to
be more open about it because I've always been very insecure
about my disability, and certainly a lot of my
acting-related experiences haven't helped with that, but also
getting to meet other actors with disabilities,
that's made me feel more empowered to talk about it more
because I can't not tell somebody.
If I don't tell somebody when I send in an audition, they're going to be like,
What are her eyes doing?
So it's been really cool to get out of that comfort zone and
be able to highlight something about me that I've always tried to keep as
hidden from the world as I could.
I see. Yeah, definitely.
I think a bad experience can also
project you to a good transformation.
Yeah.
You've been able to do that, so that's good.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay, I have a last question for you, which is about people in your career
or in your life who've been able to inspire you, motivate you, or to
bring you to a place where you are today and thanks to whom you are here.
If you had one or two people or more to think of, who would it be and why?
The people who have really changed things for me, I would say, are the main
music producer that I work with, Eric.
He really pushed me to learn production on my own.
He opened me up to the world of music licensing, which is an awesome way
to make money in the music industry without having to show your face.
He just always really been encouraging of me.
Then on the acting side, it's hard because there's really not
a lot of people like me with the roadmap.
I've had to figure it all out on my own.
I would say the people who've really
deserve all the credit are my teachers
who were happy to work with me and who took on the challenge and
decided to navigate these waters with me.
I have a couple in New York who are disability allies, and
they talk about authentic casting a lot.
I'm really lucky to have the mentorship that I do.
We share that experience that great mentors, you carry them
for your whole career, right?
Mm-hmm.
That's good.
It erases - It doesn't erase completely what happened with your teacher,
but it reinforces the way he was bad, he was not right about it.
Yes.
So today you feel confident in your acting and your singing
and your songwriting, right?
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I struggle like anyone else, but I feel a lot better.
I feel like I'm in great hands.
Okay, so thank you so much for discussing all these important topics with us today.
Thank you.
All the best with your songs and the one that is released
in July and also your acting.
Thank you so much.
And have a great day.
You too. Bye.
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Bye.