Abby Holland
@abbyholland with new kitten Onion
-Theatre-
Lives change, perceptions change, day to day routines change. Someone I believe who is facing that nonsense head on is Abby. How do we take a complete upheaval of our lives and use the challenges to build a better life and do the things we have always been called to do? Ask Abby, she got a kitten.
Interviewed 6.24.20
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: First and very hard but important question, how are you?
Abby: I'm doing okay all things considered. I don't know. It feels weird to even say that I guess. Just because of the climate that we're in with everything. So on an individual level, I'm doing okay. I live with roommates so it's nice to have some socialization. And my partner lives really, really close by so we've been seeing each other a ton. So yeah I'm doing OK.
Casey: How's your family?
Abby: My family is okay. We're kind of spread out. My parents live in St. Augustine, so they are kinda doing their thing there.
Casey: Are they taking precautions?
Abby: They are now, hopefully. For a while there, there were no cases in St. Augustine. So they were going back to stuff and going to restaurants again. And now that cases spiked again, I'm not totally sure. And then my brother and my grandma are here. My grandma is doing great. She's by herself over in Marietta. Taking all the precautions and ordering groceries in and all that good stuff. And then my brother is not doing any of this. So it's kind of across the board, but I'm definitely taking precautions.
Casey: Are you talking to everybody more or less or about the same during all this?
Abby: I talked to my parents kind of a lot but in the last few weeks we haven't talked quite as much because we are not on the same page about the movement. So I've been trying to be as active as possible with that. Really, really active. And so it's been on the forefront of my mind a whole lot. And for a while it was kind of honestly just hard to talk about anything else, you know what I mean? Especially since I was not like, "Woo! I was out!" But because I was out doing a lot of protesting and seeing a lot of stuff going on. It was like something I wanted to talk about and it wasn't met with positivity. So we haven't been talking quite as much. But we talked for Father's Day.
Casey: How has the protesting that you've been doing changed your quarantine experience?
Abby: It's changed it entirely. With a combination of the two, it's been very anxiety-inducing, really. Just because for the first week I didn't go out and protest because I was so nervous about coronaviruses and stuff. And I also see my grandma and stuff sometimes so I was very nervous in general. So I was doing a lot of organizing with materials and stuff, just trying to collect that kind of stuff and be as active as I can. And then after we could kind of settle, I didn't feel like it was enough for me to just be doing that. Like it felt unfair that I should get to sit back and do my thing and not be as helpful as I know I could be, you know, being young and able-bodied and able to be out. I wasn't doing a lot of front line protesting, but me and my girlfriend were there for the first Wendy's protests where everything went down.
But it has given us a new sense of purpose for sure. Because obviously, these protest things wouldn't be happening if obviously, the call for action right now was not so immediate. And I also think if the tensions weren't already risen from the way that our government is dealing with coronavirus and also all these, including me, unemployed people, would be stuck in this labor trap where they could like before… A lot of people couldn’t go out and protest because they're like, "I'm worried about losing my job. We're worried about all these things." And we're kind of at a point where so many people have so little left to lose. So I think it's changed it a lot but refocuses this time and has given us, I say us the collective people who are in the same mindset as me, something important to be doing with this time. As devastating as everything is.
Quarantine before everything was... it felt just very like stagnant. I'm a very extroverted person…I'm sure you're getting a lot of that in the theater field. So, while I'm very lucky to have roommates, everybody's still got to do their own thing. At the beginning, I was the only one who was unemployed. So everyone else had their jobs and my girlfriend still has her job. She's getting her master’s at GSU for Astronomy. So she's busy, busy, really busy. But they just moved everything virtually. So [I] kind of was having some issues, honestly, with a sense of, not just purpose, but that identity thing where everybody is so used to putting on theater and putting up shows and we're all kind of at least trying to be in that consistent working field. And then, all at once, there's nothing. And we're all kind of trying to make digital platforms work…
It's weird because I feel a sense of relief from not working you know? Like we all take this nice little break for the first week. I'm like, "it's nice to not feel like I have to be somewhere at every second of every day." And it even took some time for me to step back.
Casey: What was it like right in the thick of it? What was April like for you? If we remember what “April’ is...
Abby: Right. I'm like “Gosh it all runs together.” A sense of... I very much was falling between a sense of excitement for the recharge, with this all being colored entirely by the devastation that everything is. Cause I don't want to come across like I am so thankful for this because it's messed up. It's a lot of negative, but it has made us all step back and do that reassessment, like, are we happy with the way that we're living our everyday lives? Are we feeling fulfilled? Or are we just kind of doing the motions.
Casey: What do you think your stance is?
Abby: I think my stance is I can be more intentional about coming back. I can be more intentional with my time and make sure that I'm blocking out more time for self-care or mindfulness.
So being really intentional with that. Like the short bits of time that you have where I don't need that break from my actual life; because that feels like a weird thing too where like I'm doing my passion. I'm doing the thing I love, why do I feel so burnt out all the time? I think April was a big switch between feeling like I was getting recharged and ready to go do more work and then a sense of hopelessness. Hopeless kind of where I'm like, I don't really know when I see this coming back with the volition that it had.
My unemployment's about to run out in July. So I'm like, do I need to start looking at other careers for the time being? Just try to look for a nine to five, just do something that's more consistent and try to find some admin work online, do something that will be consistent till I feel like we're going to be able to get back to a place where we were, and I don't even know if I believe that we will fully get back to... Not just in the theater. I mean in our world. I think our world is really going to change going forward.
Casey: When do you think theatre will be back? Because you've mentioned how you don't know if it'll ever get back to a place where all of us were working as much as we were.
Abby: Right. Just because it feels like we've lost so much income as an industry. Not just after being paid, not just designers being paid, but like theater companies even having the money for rights.
So I'm hopeful that after the beginning of 2021 is when we'll start to see people recreating, reimagining their seasons because I think there was a push to get it done sooner, but especially now with a lot of the theatre companies having to reassess their ethics in casting… And again, I think everyone's having to take a big step back on several levels and do some inner work. As we've seen exploding across the Internet.
But I'm excited about all the efforts that it's created. I know that they are doing that three-day town hall. That I think it's going to be amazing and really helpful.
I love Atlanta. I don't foresee myself making some kind of move into something. I don't think I'll truly ever get away from theatre. It's what I love to do. So, yeah, I'm holding out for it. I'm incredibly hopeful. While not overly optimistic. I think we've all been let down by all the things going on or by coronavirus. There's a lot of disappointment. So I think I'm trying to keep an open mind about everything. My mindset has always been if I do end up getting something more consistent, I get a 9-5 or do whatever I need to do, once theater comes back, and I feel like it's back in a way that I can sustain myself, I'll do that. I'll quit whatever I'm doing.
Casey: How's it been to create during all of this? How have you been creating?
Abby: It's been tough. I have really opened my mind to doing more stuff that I'm not used to, which has been really eye-opening in a way. I've done a couple digital plays. And that's been such a struggle on the filming side. I'm making up for a lot of things that I don't know how to do.
I've also just been trying to open my mind to being creative in any way that I feel called to in the moment. So it's not like this kind of things that I know a lot of actors, including myself, get stuck in where you're worried about making sure that the hobby you're picking up or the next thing you're learning is going to help you out with whatever the hell.
So I've been like cross-stitching, which I find to be really relaxing. And it's been fun. I've been making some bookmarks and giving them to some of my friends and stuff. It's just helped me feel useful. And being able to give them to people like quarantine treats because we're not doing a lot.
And Trevor and Ben and I are writing a musical right now about me and Trevor's queer identities and the intersection of those in the… you know, younger party days. But like the difference in how queer identities can present within their own communities so kind of the idea that queer people are often associated with one type of safe space, like bars and stuff. And that's not right for everybody and it can be right for you. I think it's going to be really interesting as a different kind of perspective about gay identities. So I'm really excited about that.
Casey: It sounds like you've been ultra-productive.
Abby: It sounds like it. But for me, it doesn't feel ultra-productive because... I don't know. It's not done by any means. I'm not moving at the speed just generally in my life that I feel like I would be outside of a pandemic.
Casey: What do you prefer?
Abby: I would prefer a strong in-between because I definitely feel like I was overdoing it before. And it gets to that point where even when you're trying to do simple tasks, your brain's not there enough to even just try to focus in the moment. And then this is the situation I feel like I have so much time that I'm definitely letting myself procrastinate on everything, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Your productivity is not your worth. I think that a lot of people struggle with that.
So yeah, it's definitely been eye-opening. And I've enjoyed the freedom to be able to do some stuff that isn't just directly related to my work or putting a building block on top of what I already had or just creating more even foundation for more creative outlets.
And I've been like gardening a ton. I didn't show you the back garden. It's way prettier. But I've been really into plants. It's something that I've even decided that, outside of pandemic, I would like to find a way to have a small job working in something outdoors or working with plants, because I have found it this last year to be super grounding and one of my absolute favorite hobbies. And I think it's so interesting that it just took me so long to find it because I was like clouding myself with so much stuff. It's definitely giving me some time to reflect.
I can't complain about having that extra time to just be with myself and encourage things in myself that I am finding interesting.
Casey: What do you miss?
Abby: What I miss is fucking dancing. Like just going out to Basement and being in, I know this sounds like some people's absolute nightmare, just like a big room with all these other people who are just down to dance. And it's sweaty as hell in there. I know it opened back up. And they're at small capacity right now. But I just don't see that kind of culture where like...
I just love to go out to bars with friends. So I like to meet people there. I think that's one of my favorite things about going out.
I just don't think that that comfort of making friends, complete strangers, like there is definitely a heightened guard right now. You see it everywhere because everybody's supposed to be remaining six feet apart. Just like there's so much boxing in of personal space, which is good right now. But I see that as one of the things that... I don't imagine that it will come back quickly for us... For me to be able to make those random connections and stuff. Because people are scared of that for sure. Regardless of, let's just say, you know, fear the unknown, like you don't know where someone's been and all that kind of stuff.
So I miss that. I miss karaoke. I miss silly shit. Just the socialization aspect of things. But I'm hoping that it comes back slowly. I'm worried that it's coming back at this rate too quickly or it's being forced to. I'm on weird grounds with that because I guess I do see it coming back.
Casey: Do you think your social life will go back to what it was before? Ever?
Abby: I think so, because I feel like by the end of this, when we are able to be in close proximity and have that community, I'm hoping that everyone will be just as starved for it as I am. And that will in turn create more connection. That's in person, hopefully. It's just hard for me to get behind. Like, I've attended a bunch of Zoom gatherings and it's just... while it's really, really fun. It's just so difficult. You can't have that dynamic that you have when you're in a room of people. Tthat's just not the way it works with that. I also think it's hard to stay present on that kind of stuff.
So that was a really long twisted answer saying I miss going clubbing.
Casey: We now all globally have this thing that connects us in a crazy time. What will you take out of it?
Abby: I mean, it's impossible for me to separate the civil rights movement that's going on amidst it. I think that'll be a big part of what I talk about. But I think what I will tell them [my grandkids] about is the way that our society changed and how I feel its citizens really had some time to see the flaws in our system, both with the pervasive racism going on, but also with the way that capitalism has forced us into this box where when we're not able to work, our society completely falls apart.
I've never seen this much like civil unrest in our country in my lifetime. And I think it's pointing out a lot of things that we aren't happy about and are actively able to do and have the time to be loud about and change right now.
So it sounds so tiny, but it's so exciting to me. Me and my partner just got a cat yesterday. We got a kitten named Onion. He's a little kitty. And it's like the first pet I've ever co owned as an adult. And I'm finding so much joy in it. I've never pulled the trigger on doing it because I was worried about my timing and not being around enough and stuff. And now that I'm just not sure about anything, I've been taking a lot more risks.
I think I could talk about that too, because now it's empowering me to be like, “Okay, if you want something you can just make time for it.” So it's an attitude I've had towards my career and all this stuff pretty much the whole time, but I haven't had that fervor for my life outside of it the same way. And I'm excited to reclaim that.
