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Holly delivers storytime presentation during lockdown in 2020

The 4 questions you need to answer to create an effective presentation (and how to adapt that for online)

February 26, 2025

On Friday, March 13, 2020, everything closed in upstate New York. I was doing a project in an elementary school, and it was performance day. We had just finished our dress rehearsal and were about to perform for the rest of the school, when everything was cancelled and we were told to stay in our classrooms. No one knew why, no one knew what was going on. The kids were frustrated, but also frightened. So we communicated via email with the other classrooms, and used the camera on a laptop to film their in-classroom performance and send it to the

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The Mysterious CHIRP has launched on YouTube and your favorite podcast platform

Incoming! The Mysterious CHIRP Podcast

January 15, 2025

Update: The Mysterious CHIRP has launched and begun her adventure through space. Listen to episodes on the 4th of each month and follow our Instagram account for updates. Check out everywhere you can find the CHIRP. — I love all things space-related. I wanted to be an astronaut as a kid, and my love of space sciences continues to this day. While other little kids made scrapbooks with horses and favorite sports teams, mine was full of images from Voyager I and Voyager II. As an adult, I followed the exploits of the Mars Rovers and have attended the World

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A christmas play with mummers in costume

“In Comes I…” Twelfth Night and Mummers

January 5, 2025

“In comes I, Old Father Christmas. Am I welcome, or am I welcome not?” So begins many a mummers’ play as they erupt into the room in celebration of Twelfth Night! Twelfth Night, when children and fools are kings, and bosses and adults are fools and children, when the forces of Light and Dark meet in a climactic moment, is the night of the Three Kings. It’s also the event for which Shakespeare wrote a wonderful play…..and which, in many parts of North America and the British Isles, includes MUMMERS. What the heck are Mummers? Mumming arises out of the

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Holly performs in a radio play version of A Christmas Carol

Why I love A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

December 16, 2024

“Marley was dead to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon Exchange, for anything he put his mind to. Old Marley was dead as a doornail.  Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail.” And so begins one of the most wondrous, funny, moving, reflective, thoughtful bits of story about Christmas. Go ahead, read that again, out loud

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Children in Kabul using the masks they made

Arts in Education: Mobile Mini Circus for Children in Afghanistan has returned

April 26, 2023

Since I visited this incredible program in 2013, they were forced to shut down and seek safety when the Taliban again grew powerful and violent in the Autumn of 2022. Now, once again (as of January 2023), they have 27 teams in 11 provinces, serving children of all ages and genders, with a social circus program that also provides food and other instruction. You can learn more about them on their Facebook page (they post most often on Facebook). Support by sharing or donating if you can. — I am walking down the dirt road, my headscarf up over my

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Holly Adams warms up in her booth before starting her recording for the day

Vocal warm up techniques for audiobook narrators: Part two

November 8, 2022

I play a lot of characters and I mean a LOT. For me, getting into the mind of every kind of person is both satisfying and illuminating. I love capturing both the hero and the villain, the mom and the sword maven, the dog and the cat — you get the idea! But diving into each one of these personalities means significantly changing the way I speak for every character. Some of that is functional: because a single-narrator audiobook only has one speaker, you need a way of telling who’s who (as opposed to full cast where this is less

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Holly Adams warming up in her booth

Vocal warm up techniques for audiobook narrators: Part one

September 29, 2022

I’m not gonna lie, recording long narration (audiobooks) can be vocally brutal. A bajillion characters, lots of booth time, plus whatever else you have going on in your life, especially if you are doing outdoor shows or working with kids. Despite years in the theatre, including numerous musical theatre leads, I struggled at first with the extended booth time. Even a singing heavy show, you should only have an hour or so of vocal performance — max. I’m often doing a book a week, plus other performance work, meaning I could spend 8 or 9 hours recording on a heavy

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Summer Sling

Body in Motion, Spirit at Rest

August 18, 2014

I spent part of this past weekend attending New York Summer Sling, “a 4-day stage combat workshop sanctioned by the Society ofAmerican Fight Directors (SAFD). Classes are taught by SAFD certified fight directors and teachers from universities and theaters around the country. Class options include introductory instruction in all of our eight weapon disciplines for the stage, unique and specialized experimentation with period fighting styles, and master classes in advanced physical acting techniques” (from the Summer Sling website description). Despite an incredible lack of sleep and profound anxiety ahead of time, I had one of the most wonderful conference experiences

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Sky Chief masks, "Raven..."

Arts impacting life: 3 glimpses

March 2, 2014

These past weeks have held plentiful reminders of the horrendous things we do to each other as people and societies. In the face of large darknesses, we often forget that ignorance and intolerance are bred and cultivated in much smaller arenas long before they grow into mass malignancy. I myself have found it difficult to find anything to write about of late, and I am one of the most pragmatically action-oriented people I know. With this in mind, I have decided to devote this blog and the next to arts-based projects that are creating opportunities for connection and knowledge. The

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