Holly Near
Encyclopedia
Holly Near is an American
singer-songwriter
, actress, teacher
, and activist for social change
.
modeled on The Weavers
. In 1968, she enrolled in the Theatre
Arts program at UCLA
; that year, she attended her first Vietnam War
peace vigil
and joined Another Mother for Peace
.
, which was followed by appearances in other shows, such as Room 222
, All in the Family
, and The Partridge Family
. She also appeared in films such as Kurt Vonnegut
's Slaughterhouse-Five
, and Minnie and Moskowitz
. She also displayed her full frontal form while playing the chubby sexual predator Fran in The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (1970).
She was briefly a member of the musical comedy troupe, "First National Nothing", and appeared on the troupe's only album, If You Sit Real Still and Hold My Hand, You Will Hear Absolutely Nothing (Columbia Records
- LP C 30006).
In 1970, Near was a cast member of the Broadway musical Hair
. Following the Kent State shootings
in May of that year, the entire cast staged a silent vigil in protest. The song, "It Could Have Been Me" (which was released on A Live Album, 1974), was her heartfelt response to the shootings. In 1971, she joined the FTA (Free The Army) Tour
, an anti-Vietnam War
road show of music, comedy, and plays, organized by antiwar activist Fred Gardner and actors Jane Fonda
and Donald Sutherland
.
During her long career in folk and protest music
, Holly Near has worked with a wide array of musicians, including Ronnie Gilbert
, Pete Seeger
, Arlo Guthrie
, Mercedes Sosa
, Bernice Johnson Reagon
, Bonnie Raitt
, Jackson Browne
, Meg (Shambhavi) Christian
, Cris Williamson
, Linda Tillery
, Joan Baez
, Phil Ochs
, Harry Belafonte
, and many others, as well as the Chile
an exile group Inti-Illimani
.
In 1972, Near founded an independent record label called Redwood Records (now defunct) to produce and promote music by "politically conscious artists from around the world".
, the National Lawyers Guild
, the National Organization for Women
, NARAS
, Ms. Magazine
(Woman of the Year), and the Legends of Women's Music Award.
As a result of her travels in the Pacific with the FTA show
, Near became a feminist
, linking international feminism
and anti-war
activism. In 1976, Near came out as a lesbian
and began a three-year relationship with musician Meg Christian
. Near was probably the first out lesbian
to be interviewed in People Magazine. She added LGBT
issues to her international peace work as she continued to present social change
music around the world and at home. Although Holly was one of the most visible artists in the lesbian
community, she was also becoming aware that "monogamous
" defined her sexuality more than any other title.
Near has now been in a relationship with a man since 1994. However, she does not identify as bisexual. When asked why in a 2010 interview with Queer Music Heritage, she replied:
"I don't know why. Just isn't a handle I relate to. I include human and civil rights in all that I do. I am monogamous. I relate to that term. I am a feminist. If I am with a woman I am a feminist. If I am alone I am a feminist. If I am with a man I am a feminist. And until the one I am with and I part ways, then I am just what I am in that relationship and I don't much think about what I will do next. I focus more on what I bring to that relationship. It is a full-time job being honest one moment at a time, remembering to love, to honor, to respect. It is a practice, a discipline, worthy of every moment. I think my feminism and my ability to love has been highly informed by having had lesbian relationships. The quality of my life has, without question, been elevated.
"For a brief moment in time I struggled with sexual identity, somewhere in the mid eighties. Then I realized it was the wrong question for me. That is not to say it is the wrong question for others. It just wasn't important to me. So I haven't really thought much about it since. I am going to sing lesbian love songs and support gay rights no matter what. The rest is public relations."
Near wrote a biography in the early nineties, which is currently out of print. It was called ‘Fire In The Rain, Singer In The Storm'. Later, with her sister Timothy, Near co-wrote a one-woman show based on the stories in the book. The show was presented at The San Jose Rep
and in Los Angeles at The Mark Taper Forum
, as well as productions in San Francisco and off Broadway in NYC.
Holly Near performed at the March for Women's Lives in Washington DC on April 25, 2004. She sang "We Are Gentle Angry People"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAQkVjJzRnE and "Fired Up" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd8tkiSHRO4 a capella.
Near was named among the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" in 2005. Near continues an active tour schedule and had a discography of 26 albums. She is still active as a performer and composer, and she has begun issuing CDs available through her website that include tracks from her out-of-print albums.
Her song "Singing For Our Lives" appears in Singing the Living Tradition, the official hymnal of the Unitarian Universalist Association
, under the title "We Are A Gentle, Angry People" (Hymn #170). The hymn was also performed by Quaker Friends in an episode of the TV series "'Six Feet Under'".
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
, actress, teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
, and activist for social change
Social change
Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic...
.
Early years
After starting high school in 1963, Holly Near began singing with the Freedom Singers, a folk groupFolk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
modeled on The Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
. In 1968, she enrolled in the Theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
Arts program at UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
; that year, she attended her first Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
peace vigil
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...
and joined Another Mother for Peace
Another Mother For Peace
Another Mother for Peace is a grass-roots anti-war advocacy group founded in 1967 in opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam. The association is “dedicated to eliminating the use of war as a means of solving disputes among nations, people and ideologies...
.
Career
Holly Near's professional career began in 1969 with a part on the television show, The Mod SquadThe Mod Squad
The Mod Squad is a television series that ran on ABC from September 24, 1968, until August 23, 1973. This series starred Michael Cole, Peggy Lipton, Clarence Williams III, and Tige Andrews...
, which was followed by appearances in other shows, such as Room 222
Room 222
Room 222 is an American comedy-drama television series produced by 20th Century Fox Television. The series aired on ABC from September 17, 1969, to January 11, 1974, for 112 episodes...
, All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
, and The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family is an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career. The series originally ran from September 25, 1970 until August 31, 1974, the last new episode airing on March 23, 1974, on the ABC network, as part of a Friday-night lineup...
. She also appeared in films such as Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
's Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five (film)
Slaughterhouse-Five is a 1972 film based on Kurt Vonnegut's novel of the same name. The screenplay is by Stephen Geller and the film was directed by George Roy Hill. It stars Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, and Valerie Perrine, and features Eugene Roche, Sharon Gans, Holly Near, and Perry King. The...
, and Minnie and Moskowitz
Minnie and Moskowitz
Minnie and Moskowitz is a film by John Cassavetes, starring his wife, Gena Rowlands, and actor Seymour Cassel in the title roles of Minnie and Moskowitz, respectively.-Plot:...
. She also displayed her full frontal form while playing the chubby sexual predator Fran in The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (1970).
She was briefly a member of the musical comedy troupe, "First National Nothing", and appeared on the troupe's only album, If You Sit Real Still and Hold My Hand, You Will Hear Absolutely Nothing (Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
- LP C 30006).
In 1970, Near was a cast member of the Broadway musical Hair
Hair (musical)
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...
. Following the Kent State shootings
Kent State shootings
The Kent State shootings—also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre—occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970...
in May of that year, the entire cast staged a silent vigil in protest. The song, "It Could Have Been Me" (which was released on A Live Album, 1974), was her heartfelt response to the shootings. In 1971, she joined the FTA (Free The Army) Tour
Free The Army tour
The FTA Tour , a play on the troop expression "Fuck The Army", which in turn was a play on the army slogan "Fun, Travel and Adventure") was an anti-Vietnam War road show designed as a response to Bob Hope's USO tour....
, an anti-Vietnam War
Opposition to the Vietnam War
The movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of...
road show of music, comedy, and plays, organized by antiwar activist Fred Gardner and actors Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
and Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
.
During her long career in folk and protest music
Protest song
A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
, Holly Near has worked with a wide array of musicians, including Ronnie Gilbert
Ronnie Gilbert
Ronnie Gilbert is an American folk-singer. She is one of the original members of the Weavers with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman.-Career:...
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
, Mercedes Sosa
Mercedes Sosa
Haydée Mercedes Sosa, known as La Negra, was an Argentine singer who was popular throughout South America and some countries outside the continent. With her roots in Argentine folk music, Sosa became one of the preeminent exponents of nueva canción. She gave voice to songs written by both...
, Bernice Johnson Reagon
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Bernice Johnson Reagon is a singer, composer, scholar, and social activist, who founded the a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973.-Early life and education:...
, Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
, Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
, Meg (Shambhavi) Christian
Meg Christian
Meg Christian is an American folk singer associated with the Women's music movement.-Biography:She graduated from the University of North Carolina and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1969, where she performed in nightclubs and began writing material from an explicitly political and feminist perspective...
, Cris Williamson
Cris Williamson
Cris Williamson is an American feminist singer-songwriter, who achieved fame as a recording artist, and who was a pioneer as a visible lesbian political activist, during a time when few who were not connected to the Lesbian community were aware of Gay and Lesbian issues...
, Linda Tillery
Linda Tillery
Linda Tillery is an American singer and percussionist from San Francisco.-History:Tillery first came to prominence as the lead singer in San Francisco group The Loading Zone in 1968-69...
, Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
, Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
, Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
, and many others, as well as the Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an exile group Inti-Illimani
Inti-Illimani
Inti-Illimani is an instrumental and vocal Latin American folk music ensemble from Chile. The group was formed in 1967 by a group of university students and it acquired widespread popularity in Chile for their song Venceremos which became the anthem of the Popular Unity government of Salvador...
.
In 1972, Near founded an independent record label called Redwood Records (now defunct) to produce and promote music by "politically conscious artists from around the world".
Discography
- Hang in There, Redwood Records (1973) (Theme: support of the people of Vietnam)
Filmography
- Angel, Angel, Down We Go (1969), Tara Nicole Steele
- The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (1970), Fran
- The Todd Killings (1971), Norma
- Minnie and MoskowitzMinnie and MoskowitzMinnie and Moskowitz is a film by John Cassavetes, starring his wife, Gena Rowlands, and actor Seymour Cassel in the title roles of Minnie and Moskowitz, respectively.-Plot:...
(1971), Irish - F.T.A.F.T.A.F.T.A. is a 1972 American documentary film starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland and directed by Francine Parker.-Overview:Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and a collection of performers and musicians put together a touring satirical revue to perform at coffeehouses and parks near American army...
(1972), Herself - Slaughterhouse-FiveSlaughterhouse-Five (film)Slaughterhouse-Five is a 1972 film based on Kurt Vonnegut's novel of the same name. The screenplay is by Stephen Geller and the film was directed by George Roy Hill. It stars Michael Sacks, Ron Leibman, and Valerie Perrine, and features Eugene Roche, Sharon Gans, Holly Near, and Perry King. The...
(1972), Barbara Pilgrim - The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time!The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time!The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time! is a 1982 documentary film about the blacklisted folk group The Weavers and the events leading up to their 1980 reunion concert at Carnegie Hall.The film was the inspiration for the 2003 mockumentary film A Mighty Wind....
(1982), Herself (documentary interview) - DogfightDogfight (film)Dogfight is a 1991 film set in San Francisco, California, during the Vietnam War , stars River Phoenix and Lili Taylor and was directed by Nancy Savoca....
(1991), Rose Sr. - Heartwood (1998), Lucille Burris
TV appearances
- The Bold Ones: The SenatorThe Bold Ones: The SenatorThe Bold Ones: The Senator is an American political television drama series that aired on NBC from 1970 through 1971, lasting for nine episodes . The series stars Hal Holbrook as Senator Hays Stowe.The Senator was part of The Bold Ones, a rotating series of dramas that also included The New...
, Sylvia - in the episode "Power Play" (1970) - Room 222Room 222Room 222 is an American comedy-drama television series produced by 20th Century Fox Television. The series aired on ABC from September 17, 1969, to January 11, 1974, for 112 episodes...
, Esther - in the episode "The Lincoln Story" (1970) - All in the FamilyAll in the FamilyAll in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
, Mona - in the episode "Gloria Has a Belly Full" (1971) - The Partridge FamilyThe Partridge FamilyThe Partridge Family is an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career. The series originally ran from September 25, 1970 until August 31, 1974, the last new episode airing on March 23, 1974, on the ABC network, as part of a Friday-night lineup...
, Phyllis - in the episode "The Selling of the Partridges" (1973) - L.A. LawL.A. LawL.A. Law is a US television legal drama that ran on NBC from September 15, 1986 to May 19, 1994. L.A. Law reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights,...
, Mrs. Skerritt - in the episode "Spleen It to Me, Lucy" (1991)
Personal life
Holly Near has been recognized many times for her work for social change, including honors from the ACLUAmerican Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
, the National Lawyers Guild
National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild is an advocacy group in the United States "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system . ....
, the National Organization for Women
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S...
, NARAS
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc., known variously as The Recording Academy or NARAS, is a U.S. organization of musicians, producers, recording engineers and other recording professionals dedicated to improving the quality of life and cultural condition for music and its...
, Ms. Magazine
Ms. magazine
Ms. is an American feminist magazine co-founded by American feminist and activist Gloria Steinem and founding editor Letty Cottin Pogrebin together with founding editors Patricia Carbine, Joanne Edgar, Nina Finkelstein, and Mary Peacock, that first appeared in 1971 as an insert in New York magazine...
(Woman of the Year), and the Legends of Women's Music Award.
As a result of her travels in the Pacific with the FTA show
Free The Army tour
The FTA Tour , a play on the troop expression "Fuck The Army", which in turn was a play on the army slogan "Fun, Travel and Adventure") was an anti-Vietnam War road show designed as a response to Bob Hope's USO tour....
, Near became a feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, linking international feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
and anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
activism. In 1976, Near came out as a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
and began a three-year relationship with musician Meg Christian
Meg Christian
Meg Christian is an American folk singer associated with the Women's music movement.-Biography:She graduated from the University of North Carolina and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1969, where she performed in nightclubs and began writing material from an explicitly political and feminist perspective...
. Near was probably the first out lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
to be interviewed in People Magazine. She added LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
issues to her international peace work as she continued to present social change
Social change
Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic...
music around the world and at home. Although Holly was one of the most visible artists in the lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
community, she was also becoming aware that "monogamous
Monogamy
Monogamy /Gr. μονός+γάμος - one+marriage/ a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction...
" defined her sexuality more than any other title.
Near has now been in a relationship with a man since 1994. However, she does not identify as bisexual. When asked why in a 2010 interview with Queer Music Heritage, she replied:
"I don't know why. Just isn't a handle I relate to. I include human and civil rights in all that I do. I am monogamous. I relate to that term. I am a feminist. If I am with a woman I am a feminist. If I am alone I am a feminist. If I am with a man I am a feminist. And until the one I am with and I part ways, then I am just what I am in that relationship and I don't much think about what I will do next. I focus more on what I bring to that relationship. It is a full-time job being honest one moment at a time, remembering to love, to honor, to respect. It is a practice, a discipline, worthy of every moment. I think my feminism and my ability to love has been highly informed by having had lesbian relationships. The quality of my life has, without question, been elevated.
"For a brief moment in time I struggled with sexual identity, somewhere in the mid eighties. Then I realized it was the wrong question for me. That is not to say it is the wrong question for others. It just wasn't important to me. So I haven't really thought much about it since. I am going to sing lesbian love songs and support gay rights no matter what. The rest is public relations."
Near wrote a biography in the early nineties, which is currently out of print. It was called ‘Fire In The Rain, Singer In The Storm'. Later, with her sister Timothy, Near co-wrote a one-woman show based on the stories in the book. The show was presented at The San Jose Rep
San Jose Repertory Theatre
The San Jose Repertory Theatre was founded in 1980 by James P. Reber as the first resident professional theatre company in San Jose, California, and is currently the largest non-profit, professional theatre company in the South Bay...
and in Los Angeles at The Mark Taper Forum
Mark Taper Forum
The Mark Taper Forum is a 739 seat thrust stage at the Los Angeles Music Center built by Welton Becket and Associates on the Bunker Hill section of downtown Los Angeles...
, as well as productions in San Francisco and off Broadway in NYC.
Holly Near performed at the March for Women's Lives in Washington DC on April 25, 2004. She sang "We Are Gentle Angry People"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAQkVjJzRnE and "Fired Up" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd8tkiSHRO4 a capella.
Near was named among the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" in 2005. Near continues an active tour schedule and had a discography of 26 albums. She is still active as a performer and composer, and she has begun issuing CDs available through her website that include tracks from her out-of-print albums.
Her song "Singing For Our Lives" appears in Singing the Living Tradition, the official hymnal of the Unitarian Universalist Association
Unitarian Universalist Association
Unitarian Universalist Association , in full the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in North America, is a liberal religious association of Unitarian Universalist congregations formed by the consolidation in 1961 of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of...
, under the title "We Are A Gentle, Angry People" (Hymn #170). The hymn was also performed by Quaker Friends in an episode of the TV series "'Six Feet Under'".