Kelly has a powerful conversation with longtime friend and Second City colleague Tania Richard, whose new book “Black Girl from a White Suburb” looks at race, a life in theatre, loss and finding resilience along the way. 

We’ve known each other for 30 some odd years, but it always seems like I learn the most personal information from you not in the form of a one-on-one conversation, but in art you create and perform. 

“I have a really bad habit of having something really consequential happen in my life and then not within a very long time, I start writing about it. And then I do something extra cute: I go ahead and perform it. So, for example, a few years back, my parents died within eight months of each other. And there were many complications and nuances to that story, including my mother’s dementia; finding things out like, they’d been divorced since 1990. And they didn’t tell anybody. And so, I proceeded to write a solo show and perform it within eight months of both of them passing, and all of these revelations came out. What I’ve come to realize is that is how I process my life – through the process of writing and then because I’m a performer through the process of telling it aloud.” 

You write beautifully about your sister who died in a car crash when you were a kid and how you keep her present by talking and writing about her. 

“It’s as I’ve gotten older that I realized that she’s always been here. Part of why she’s always been here is because I can’t stop writing about her in the things that I create. She shows up every time without intention. And I just recently heard a quote about that, which is, essentially, about why our loved ones never leave us: they only leave us if we stop remembering them;  if we stop talking about them. And because I’m not the type of person who is always like, ‘My sister who passed away.’ She’s my sister, right? But I am the person who has consistently throughout all of my work written about her, literally and figuratively. And now I really realize, that’s how I’ve kept her here.” 

By far, for me, the most painful story was when your school put on production of The Wiz. 

“Yeah, you know, it’s so funny. So, for those who may not know, The Wiz is the all-black adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. And guess what? That’s the point. It’s meant to celebrate black culture through this story we all know. Dorothy is black. Everyone’s black. I went to an all-white school. So, our theater department decided that we’re going to do The Wiz. And at first, I thought, well, clearly this is, it’s my destiny. I soon discovered, no, there was no intention in casting me as Dorothy. In fact, they cast me as, Evillene, the witch, which has it’s own issues. And yes, I found myself cast in the all-white production of The Wiz, which is forever a punchline whenever I tell the story.” 

Photo Credit: Maia Rosenfeld