Today we’d like to introduce you to Holly Doubet.
Hi Holly, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I am a native Texan and Dallasite, and come from a musical lineage; my great uncle played pedal steel and piano for The Light Crust Doughboys alongside Texas icon Bob Wills. My mother sang on the European opera stage. Both parents lent their talents to the music department of the BBC in London, and my mom is now a vocal coach for celebrities. I am a classically trained musician, having had the good fortune to study piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London when I was younger, and subsequently receiving a full-ride scholarship to major in both piano and voice. After college, I shifted to the pop music business in Los Angeles, and had an exciting time singing back-up on TV, radio, and in Las Vegas (I even got to rub elbows with the likes of Frank Sinatra on a regular basis!). I moved back to Dallas, my hometown, in 1994, and was soon the songwriter for the Barney and Friends TV show. Talk about a great opportunity – I loved every minute of it! I had several pop songs picked up while working from Dallas, including one that garnered a CableAce Award nomination.
Unfortunately, I had a terrible divorce in 2000, and as a single mother raising two young sons on my own, my dreams of staying in the music business ended. Although I was no longer composing or singing, music remained my passion. It took an absolutely crazy event for me to get back into it these many years later.
In January of 2018, I was in Hawaii when an official state alert came to all of our phones that said “TAKE IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THERE IS A BALLISTIC MISSILE INBOUND FOR HAWAII. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” I called my sons back in Dallas and said goodbye, and examined my life as I waited for the bomb to drop. Obviously, Hawaii is still on the planet, and the alert was retracted 38 minutes later. After returning home to Dallas and taking a break to recover from that trauma, I decided to write a musical! It is called 38 MINUTES, and it recently won the Donald Fowler Memorial Theater Arts Grant by unanimous committee vote (how often does that happen?!). 38 MINUTES details my actual experiences through song and scene, and introduces and follows several diverse characters, including tourists and Hawaiian residents, to show how these people live through the horrifying minutes.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
My struggles have definitely been trying to remain creative through a devastating divorce and while raising two amazing sons as a single mom. They are grown now, and I am proud to say one is a Harvard graduate, and the other a graduate of Princeton. I feel my time was well spent.
My musical creativity requires solitude and many hours of contemplation at the piano. Contrary to many popular notions, my own music springs from being in a positive state of mind. Yes, I have experienced hardship, but being unhappy has proven to be of benefit to my creative process only after the fact, not during.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I began composing AGAIN, after many years of hiatus, at the age of 60. I am more energized than ever before. The insight gained through my now 63 years of life only adds to my insight, expectations, and abilities. Additionally, my range of musical influence is vastly expanded; Puccini – the brilliant composer of soaring melody who honed the musical quintessence of human emotion. Joni Mitchell, the vulnerable poet/songwriter of our times. Stravinsky, the shatterer of musical orchestral norms well into his eighties and early nineties. The Beach Boys, who brought us so much Fun, Fun, Fun! These influences, and so many more, have dismantled any presupposition that I have to compose music a certain way. My composing is now about communicating the experience of the moment beyond just the words I use.
We had a concert reading of 38 MINUTES on December 9th and 10th, 2021. The show was sold out, and received a standing ovation for both evenings. This was an opportunity for Dallasites to see how a Broadway show builds from the ground up, with an incredibly informative Q&A from much awarded Broadway directors Paul Bogaev and Gabriel Barre afterwards, who had expressed interest in participating early on in the development. With these two Broadway heavyweights already involved in the project, it has become a fantastic opportunity for arts supporters. The arts do not happen without patrons, and with our sights on Broadway and the foreseen costs of reaching this ambitious position, there is a Venmo fundraiser at https://venmo.com/code?
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
My musical, 38 MINUTES, has caught the interest of two Broadway superstar directors: Paul Bogaev, the oft-awarded music director for Broadway hits such as The Lion King, Chicago, Sunset Boulevard, Dream Girls, and many others, and Gabriel Barre, a director known for bringing original musicals to the Broadway stage and across four continents internationally. Prior to the recent preview shows and their arrival in Dallas to direct, the creative team began focusing on script details to further authenticate the story. Their participation is of incalculable value. We have already received detailed write-ups in Broadway World, Opera News, and the Dallas Observer.
I have always considered myself to be lucky, but I find “the harder I work, the luckier I get!” The quote is often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Goldwin, Confucious, or Henry Ford, but some say it was actually first heard at a Rotary Meeting in the 1930s, and the name of the wise keynoter has since been mired in obscurity. But no matter who first uttered those words, it is a proclamation I agree with.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@hollydoubet.com
- Venmo fundraiser: https://venmo.com/
code?user_id= 3415932521152512159&created= 1639162427.4288511&printed=1 - Website: www.hollydoubet.com
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.
com/results?search_query= holly+doubet - SoundCloud: www.soundcloud.
com/holly-doubet - Other: https://www.
broadwayworld.com/industry/ article/Paul-Bogaev-And- Gabriel-Barre-Attached-To- Musical-In-Development-38- MINUTES-2
Image Credits
Kent Barker
