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Actor-director-composer-playwright Anita Hollander discusses her favorite roles (including one where she played a three-legged cat, then the one-legged dance hall girl). Anita reveals that sometimes her disability is a property rather than liability in performing demanding acting roles.Susan Dansby: Inform us about your preferred acting role 롤대리팀. Anita Hollander: I've two favorites. The very first one being when I played Grizabella in Cats.I wasn't a huge fan of the show Cats; but I played Grizabella - the one who sings "Memory" - as a three-legged cat. When I got the work, the producer and the director and I talked and I said, "You understand, why don't we just have me, au naturel, as a three- legged cat?" A cat who's gone out there in the world and lost her leg and returned and everybody is type of freaked out and then, she sings this song about 'if you touch me, you'll know what happiness is.' And it brings in a complete new meaning when this cat has undergone life and nobody should feel sorry for her. And it absolutely was so perfect, and we all agreed that that was a good way to complete it. And it surely made the entire experience of Cats a complete different thing, brought it to a complete different level where everybody just really experienced something special. And that was a real favorite of mine. The other favorite of mine is a part that I got a Helen Hayes award nomination for down in Washington. And that was some sort of premiere musical called The Fifth Season in which I played a dance hall girl who is running away from a man who shot her in the leg. And by the 2nd 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 very 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 2nd act, I've one leg. And audiences debated in the lobby how they did the one-legged thing since the actress couldn't have one leg because she danced in the very first act and we all saw both legs. So they need to be covering it somehow. How did they do that? Because there clearly was a huge fight scene and everything with me with one leg; and people couldn't figure out where I was hiding my other leg. However the funny thing about that was how I got that job. Susan Dansby: Yes, how did you obtain that job? Anita Hollander: It's certainly one of my personal favorite stories because I'd sung many times at [New York University] for the musical theater writers, where they make professional singers and actors presenting the project that the writers will work on. And those two 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, a couple of years went by, and I got a phone call from those two people - this composer and lyricist team - who said, "We'd love you to complete a reading of our new musical. It's going 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 as you to do this and it's this wonderful story of the dance hall girl who gets shot, and she runs away from Oklahoma to attend South Dakota, and she loses her leg. It's a fantastic true story of the West. I said, "This really is great!" And I said, "Would you like me to take my leg off in the 2nd 50% of the reading?" (It was staged reading.) And there clearly was silence - total silence on the device line. And I believed, "Oh, what did I really do, what did I really do?" I said, "Have you been guys, okay?" And they said, "You know what, can we get back to you, can we just call you back a few minutes?" Then, they hung up and I believed, "Oh, what did I really do?" And they called me back a few minutes later and said, "Anita we didn't know you'd one leg. We only knew that the voice was the voice we remembered as the perfect voice. You've got this big bold voice. We loved your voice, then. We want to own it now. And we had no idea that you had one leg. And we hope you're not offended, because that's not why we called you." And I said, "Have you been kidding? Exactly how many roles are actually that great for me to own two legs in the very first act, and one leg in the 2nd, and to sing and to do something?" I said, "You couldn't have given me a larger 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 - of a year after that. And the funny thing was they made me audition again for the role. And when I walked from the room, the musical director thought to the director and the casting director, and the producer, "Why are we sitting here talking about this? She's the perfect person with this role. There's no discussion. We must cast this woman and stop talking about it." And each of them agreed that well, of course it's perfect. If the role can be an amputee who will sing and dance and act, and we've an amputee actress who will sing and dance and act sitting within our room, there's no question. So it absolutely was very funny. Susan Dansby: I imagine it's such a great exemplory case of how the thing you believe will prevent you; the thing you believe will close doors in that person is the thing, invariably, that opens doors for you. Anita Hollander: It's very true in many cases; it's been a property for me on many levels, not always. Susan Dansby: Not always. Anita Hollander: You can find actual disabled roles that I wasn't cast in. I was auditioned because of it and they went for a non-disabled actor for the role although they had the authentic, accurate, person (actress) in the room. So it hasn't always worked within my favor however when it's, I call it an asset. I've always felt this way - that what makes me unique is a property even when I don't get other jobs. Actually, on my resume are more roles which are not 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 yet in the stories or if it's fictional roles - not disabled. However, it doesn't hurt to truly 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 to me, "We always forget that you have one leg because you zip on to that stage and zip cool off again." Susan Dansby: Well, and I think that the other way that being in a fraction becomes a property is that you go in knowing, "Okay, there may be some odds against me here 롤대리팀."