Kelly Richmond
Assistant Professor
Snyder Hall
richm167@msu.edu
Education
PhD in Performing and Media Arts, Cornell University
MA in Theatre Arts, Cornell University
BA in English Drama & Theatre, McGill University
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Biography
Kelly Richmond is an artist-scholar, teacher, amateur circus performer, avid flower photographer, part-time cat rescuer, and full-time ghost hunter. Born and raised in Toronto, she has since lived in Montréal, Québec; Ottawa, Ontario; and Ithaca, New York. Kelly has published on queer circus, new materialist performance, and environmental stewardship in theatre education. Her research examines the intersections of queer performance, environmental activism, and gothic aesthetics.
As an artist-scholar, Kelly creates work which explores queer adaptation while combining practice-as-research, community collaboration, and artivism. Her works include Loose Ties (Ithaca 2024), Out of Reach: A Queer Fairy Tale (Ithaca 2023), Haunted Natures, Hidden Environments (Ithaca 2022), eTRASH Lab (Ithaca 2020), Tartuffe (Ithaca 2019), Climates of Change (Ithaca 2017) and In Fair Verona: A Lesbian Dystopic Burlesque (Montreal 2016). In addition to this artistic work, she has co-organized a number of symposia that combine research dissemination, pedagogical praxis workshops, and artistic performance: “The Ithaca Department of Arts and Future: A Coalition and Celebration for the World to Come” (Ithaca 2023), “Re-imagining the Future: A Teach-In on Fostering Environmental Stewardship in Theatre and Performance Education” (CATR 2023), and “Feminist Directions: An Interdisciplinary Symposium of Performance, Power, and Leadership” (Cornell 2019). In 2024, Kelly was inducted into the Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, in recognition of her commitment to community leadership and the cultivation of supportive environments for students from historically underrepresented backgrounds in higher education.
Kelly joined Michigan State University and its Residential College in the Arts and Humanities faculty in 2024, teaching in the Tier I Writing program and the RCAH Arts Pathway. She is a member of the inaugural class of MSU’s 1855 Professors, a cohort of cross-disciplinary faculty working to advance MSU’s DEI objectives, enhance collaborations campuswide, and foster new partnerships.