Kelly Richmond Helps Us Understand How Healing and The Environment Are Inextricable
April 22, 2026
Kelly Richmond Helps Us Understand How Healing and The Environment Are Inextricable
- Kelly Richmond explores art as a tool for environmental connection and healing
- She stresses learning through action and performance
- Her work illustrates the importance of relationships, identity, and varied perspectives
By Jessica Watley | RCAH Senior Communications Intern
“Performance theater always asks the question: what does the performance do?”
For Kelly Richmond, that question doesn’t start on the stage—it’s ingrained in classrooms, communities, and the environment itself. Queer performance, environmental activism, and art intersect in Richmond’s work, in which storytelling acts not just as expression but as action.
That connection didn’t appear overnight. Richmond traces it to her first semester of graduate school, when she engaged deeply in a “living newspaper” project—a form of documentary theater that transforms headlines and current events into performance. She describes the experience as transformative. It wasn’t just about interpreting the world; it was about actively interacting with it.
“We learn best through doing,” she says.
That philosophy still shapes both her creative work and her teaching. As an artist-scholar, Richmond approaches the classroom as a space of experimentation, where performance becomes a method of inquiry. Instead of simply discussing ideas, students embody them—testing how knowledge feels, moves, and resonates in real time. In this sense, learning becomes performative: something lived rather than memorized.
But Richmond’s work goes beyond the classroom. Much of it centers on cooperation—what she calls meaningful community participation. For her, that doesn’t mean short-term projects or surface-level partnerships. It means building long-term relationships and asking what remains after the work is done.
“How do you sustain those relationships?” she asks.
She suggests the answer lies in reciprocity and an intense sense of place. Her work frequently reflects a strong connection to regional identity, particularly the Great Lakes, where ecological concerns are not abstract but intensely personal. Community engagement, then, becomes less about outreach and more about shared investment—people, place, and story intertwined.
That same philosophy shapes how Richmond thinks about environmental issues. Through projects like Earth Matters on Stage, she explores how theater can help people process ecological grief and imagine new forms of healing. Science alone, she suggests, cannot fully address the emotional weight of climate change. Art creates space for that reckoning.
“There’s an inability to heal through Mother Nature without art,” she notes—pointing to performance as a means to process, connect, and ultimately respond.
Fundamental to this work is a devotion to inclusivity, particularly in creating and sustaining spaces for queer students. Richmond emphasizes that identity, lived experience, and viewpoint are not just personal—they shape how people understand and move through the world.
“It’s important to acknowledge that hard times are determined by all modes of sexuality, gender, lived experience, and perspective,” she says.
In her teaching and artistic practice, that acknowledgment becomes action. By fostering spaces where diverse voices are not merely welcomed but centered, Richmond helps cultivate communities that don’t just exist—they create culture, knowledge, and belonging.
At its core, her work asks a simple though urgent question: What can art do?
For Richmond, the answer is clear. It can connect people. It can deepen our relationship with the environment. And perhaps most importantly, it can help us begin to heal.
For Kelly Richmond, that question doesn’t start on the stage—it’s ingrained in classrooms, communities, and the environment itself. Queer performance, environmental activism, and art intersect in Richmond’s work, in which storytelling acts not just as expression but as action.
That connection didn’t appear overnight. Richmond traces it to her first semester of graduate school, when she engaged deeply in a “living newspaper” project—a form of documentary theater that transforms headlines and current events into performance. She describes the experience as transformative. It wasn’t just about interpreting the world; it was about actively interacting with it.
“We learn best through doing,” she says.
That philosophy still shapes both her creative work and her teaching. As an artist-scholar, Richmond approaches the classroom as a space of experimentation, where performance becomes a method of inquiry. Instead of simply discussing ideas, students embody them—testing how knowledge feels, moves, and resonates in real time. In this sense, learning becomes performative: something lived rather than memorized.
But Richmond’s work goes beyond the classroom. Much of it centers on cooperation—what she calls meaningful community participation. For her, that doesn’t mean short-term projects or surface-level partnerships. It means building long-term relationships and asking what remains after the work is done.
“How do you sustain those relationships?” she asks.
She suggests the answer lies in reciprocity and an intense sense of place. Her work frequently reflects a strong connection to regional identity, particularly the Great Lakes, where ecological concerns are not abstract but intensely personal. Community engagement, then, becomes less about outreach and more about shared investment—people, place, and story intertwined.
That same philosophy shapes how Richmond thinks about environmental issues. Through projects like Earth Matters on Stage, she explores how theater can help people process ecological grief and imagine new forms of healing. Science alone, she suggests, cannot fully address the emotional weight of climate change. Art creates space for that reckoning.
“There’s an inability to heal through Mother Nature without art,” she notes—pointing to performance as a means to process, connect, and ultimately respond.
Fundamental to this work is a devotion to inclusivity, particularly in creating and sustaining spaces for queer students. Richmond emphasizes that identity, lived experience, and viewpoint are not just personal—they shape how people understand and move through the world.
“It’s important to acknowledge that hard times are determined by all modes of sexuality, gender, lived experience, and perspective,” she says.
In her teaching and artistic practice, that acknowledgment becomes action. By fostering spaces where diverse voices are not merely welcomed but centered, Richmond helps cultivate communities that don’t just exist—they create culture, knowledge, and belonging.
At its core, her work asks a simple though urgent question: What can art do?
For Richmond, the answer is clear. It can connect people. It can deepen our relationship with the environment. And perhaps most importantly, it can help us begin to heal.
—
For a deep dive into theatrical machinery and queer ecodramaturgy, check out Kelly Richmond's "The Salon Automaton and Its Haunted Ecodramaturgies," now available in Modern Drama.