The Hall Closet Podcast

IN THIS EPISODE  Tonight's guest is someone whose story has crossed mine in a few different ways over the years. Jess grew up just a few streets away from me. She's younger than I am, so she was too young to really understand or remember much about what was happening in my life back then, but our families knew each other. It was actually ... I was actually really good friends with her sist...

IN THIS EPISODE What does it really mean to belong? What happens when you spend much of your life feeling like you don't? This week, I'm joined by Jackie, a marriage and family therapist whose own struggles with depression, identity and self-worth hekoed shape her passion for helping others. We talk about the importance of finding your authentic self and how the people who show up for us c...

IN THIS EPISODE It's just Donna. SHOW NOTES The Hall Closet is written by Donna Hall. Costard & Touchstone Productions produced the podcast. Donna Hall and A L Katz are the executive producers. CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS: The Hall Closet is not intended for sensitive audiences. Domestic abuse, violence, child endangerment, adultery, explicit language. SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS Facebook: @THEHALLCLOSETP...

IN THIS EPISODE A random Friday night run to the market turns into a conversation I never expected. Michael Jared Kite joins me to talk about addiction, ego, accountability, creativity, and the difference between knowing what needs to change and actually doing the work to change it. Sometimes the best advice is also the hardest to hear: maybe you should stop listening to yourself. SHOW NOTES The H...

IN THIS EPISODE Donna sits down with artist, photographer, writer, and SnapKracker creator Mark Friedhoffer, whose story has taken him from the punk rock and music scenes to addiction, incarceration, homelessness, and ultimately, sobriety and a life rebuilt through art. Clean and sober since 2018, Mark talks openly about the chaos, consequences, spirituality, and creativity that have shaped him—an...

In This Episode Since I began releasing this podcast, a lot of people have asked me, considering all the dangerous, effed up stuff that happened to me, how did I manage to become this not-dangerous, only slightly effed up version of myself? My producer Alan Katz and I will both revisit the past and talk about how doing this podcast helped me in my healing process. SHOW NOTES The Hall Closet is wri...

IN THIS EPISODE - My conversation with the brilliant, funny Sonia V continues. For women like the comedian Sonia V and me, women who are confident, independent, not afraid to take up space, and real as fuck, it could even be more complicated. Sonia's a Philadelphia-based comedian, actor, writer and activist. She's also the host of the podcast "Yo, That's Weird". She's the kind of person where, som...

IN THIS EPISODE - Dating in 2026 is totally effed. The apps, the ghosting, the mixed signals, the situationships, trying to decode a text message like you're working for the FBI. And then there's another layer. For women like the comedian Sonia Z and me, women who are confident, independent, not afraid to take up space, and real as fuck, it could even be more complicated. I figured if we're gonna...

IN THIS EPISODE My friend Pascale is a singer, a single mom, a hustler and one hell of a human being. Pascale and I talk about raising a son on the autism spectrum, relationships, chasing our passions, taking care of ourselselves and figuring it all out on the fly. SHOW NOTES The Hall Closet is written by Donna Hall. Costard & Touchstone Productions produced it. Donna Hall and A L Katz are the...

IN THIS EPISODE What does it really mean to belong? Dr. Beth Kaplan is the author of Braving the Workplace: Belonging at the Breaking Point, a fantastic book which explores why belonging isn’t just something we want—it’s something we need. Together, we discuss how feeling seen, valued, and accepted impacts our mental health, our relationships, and even our ability to thrive at work and in life. We...

IN THIS EPISODE What if one DNA test changed everything you thought you knew about yourself? When J. Steven Osborne set out to learn more about his ancestry, he never imagined it would unravel the very foundation of his identity. In this deeply personal conversation, J. Steven shares the emotional journey behind discovering that the man who raised him wasn’t his biological father—and how that reve...

This wasn’t the episode I planned. My guest had to cancel, and instead of taking the night off, I decided to hit record anyway. This one’s just me. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the ripple effects of growing up with trauma, the patterns I’ve started noticing in myself, and the questions I still don’t have answers to. Things like why I keep ending up in the same situations… why my brain wor...

IN THIS EPISODE: Healing isn’t about pretending the past never happened—it’s about deciding what comes next. In Part 2 of our conversation, Righteous shares how music became more than a creative outlet—it became a way to process pain, rediscover himself, and build a different future. We talk about fatherhood, accountability, mental health, forgiveness, and the courage it takes to choose a life tha...

In This Episode: what happens when two people from different walks of life realize they’ve been carrying many of the same invisible wounds? In Part 1 of my conversation with Righteous, we explore the lasting ripple effects of childhood trauma, the masks we wear to survive, and the ways our past quietly shapes our relationships, identity, and sense of self. Through honest conversation and shared re...

S3E6 The Power Of Connection with Danielle Brody, Part 2 Some conversations have a way of taking on a life of their own... and this is one of them. In Part 2 of my conversation with Danielle Brody, we continue exploring what it means to take ownership of our health, our healing and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s possible. We dive deeper into the role of mindset, community, stress manag...

S3E5 The Power Of Connection with Danielle Brody, Part 1 What if some of the biggest changes in our lives begin with the smallest ones? In Part 1 of my conversation with Danielle Brody, we explore the powerful connection between mind, body, and healing. Danielle shares her journey of living with lupus, the lifestyle changes that helped transform her health, and the lessons she learned about stress...

S3E4 Sisters, Part 4 My donor sibling Amy was the the first donor sibling I ever connected with after I got my DNA results back and suddenly this entire hidden world cracked open. Amy and I share a lot of the same emotional wiring, the same sensitivities. But we’re also wildly different. But what means the most to me isn’t just the DNA connection, it’s the relationship we built afterward. Amy...

S3E3 No More Late Night Calls My friend Joe Devlin is a super talented country music artist with a family. But alcohol threatened everything. Including his future. When Joe made the decision to change his life, his life changed. These days, he's present and sober; he's a partner, a father and an artist with a clarity of vision he didn't have before. In this episode, Joe will tell the story of his...

S3E2 Conversations Have A Mind Of Their Own Podcaster Christopher Scott was one of my very first interviews back when I was still finding my voice. Over time, he became some I trusted behind the scenes. In this conversation, we talk about the podcast industry and what being in it does to you. How it changes you and pushes you. And, no matter how much you plan, conversations just seem to go where t...

S3E1 Long After The Headlines In season 3, Donna will revisit her past from the perspective of the various ripple effects her past had on her present and future. Hard as it was growing up in a lower tier crime family, that was almost nothing compared to the challenges Donna has faced from the emotional and psychological ripple efects of growing up a Hall. Donna and podcast producer Alan Katz trace...

THE BLURB: In the final episode of Season Two, Donna reflects on the conversations, guests, and stories that shaped this chapter of The Hall Closet. From wrongful convictions and addiction to trauma, resilience, and survival, this season became less about headlines and more about the people living in the aftermath of them. But somewhere in the middle of holding space for everyone else’s stories, D...

THE BLURB: If it always seems like my friend Dana always has it together, that's because she absolutely does. The owner of a successful hair salon, Dana is genuine, strong and beautiful. What makes that truly remarkable is that she became all those things in spite of living through a profound trauma. As Dana learned the hard way, Loving an addict isn't just one story. It's a thousand quiet moments...

THE BLURB: This is a very personal episoide. My friend Johnna is a school psychologist - an excellent one. She's the kind of person who shows up in moments most people don't know how to handle and helps them navigate it. She helped pull me through a domestic violence related emotional hole simply by being there and listening without passing judgment. This conversation might just articulate things...

THE BLURB: The traumas that shape our psyches can suddenly impose themselves on our lives at the worst possible times. In 2003, after Jayson Blair became a journalist at the New York Times, a dream job, his mental health collapsed. Desperate to keep his struggles a secret, Jayson ended up committing serial plagiarism that rocked the Times and the entire world of journalism. Bi-polarity threat...

THE BLURB: For Donna, growing up in a True Crime Family created a host of ripple effects including deep psychic and psychological wounds that have profoundly impacted her mental health. Tony Ortiz has been dealing with and combatting the ripple effects of mental health issues since his childhood, too. Mental health issues regularly pit people against the criminal justice system - which doesn't hel...