“Black Girl from a White Suburb,” Tania Richard’s new solo play now onstage at American Blues Theater, begins and ends with breathing. Before she speaks any lines or acknowledges the audience, Richard lies down on a rug and does a few yoga stretches, giving the sense that we’re glimpsing a private moment. At the end of her warmly interactive and deeply personal show, she invites viewers to inhale and exhale in unison with her. After an hour of seeing the world through her eyes, with memories ranging from humorous to painful, this collective moment of reflection and release is a welcome sendoff.
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A Chicago-based actress with credits at the Goodman, Steppenwolf, Court and many other theaters, Richard is an artistic affiliate at American Blues, where she also serves as the inclusion and belonging consultant. In 2025, she published her memoir, “Black Girl from a White Suburb: Finding My Light, Using My Voice.” American Blues then commissioned Richard to adapt it for the stage, with J. Nicole Brooks directing the world premiere.
Richard’s parents, originally from Haiti, immigrated to Canada to attend medical school and then to Chicago for their residencies. When they asked colleagues for advice on where to raise a family, the response was Western Springs, a predominantly white suburb. To Western Springs her parents went, and that’s how Richard ended up as the only Black child in her school for much of her education. (When she reached high school, there was one other Black student, but he was a football player who only dated white girls, she dryly notes.)
In an origin story that will be familiar to many artists, Richard found a sense of autonomy and belonging as a writer and performer, but her journey to this point was complicated. The microaggressions she experienced from her middle-school drama club teacher could have scared her off the stage for good, but an opportunity to play the caterpillar in “Alice in Wonderland” proved transformative. “Being green erased my race,” she reflects, before quipping that she wore green makeup long before Elphaba in “Wicked.”
Many plays that address anti-Black racism focus on incidents that are widely recognized as unjust, such as lynching, redlining or police violence. Richard’s tale offers a subtler but equally important perspective on growing up Black in America. Even when insulated by a certain amount of privilege, like living in a well-off suburb with parents who are medical professionals, the frequent indignities and threatening subtexts of everyday encounters constitute a form of violence.
Richard also shares how she was affected by national events such as the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers in 1991. When a jury acquitted the officers the following year, Richard was performing as part of an all-Black cast in Steppenwolf Theatre’s world premiere of “The Song of Jacob Zulu,” a South African drama that later transferred to Broadway and received six Tony Award nominations. Her memories of performing a play set during Apartheid on that particular evening are powerful and raw.
The theme of breath recurs in the show’s later scenes, as Richard connects Eric Garner and George Floyd’s desperate protestations, “I can’t breathe,” with her own experiences of medical racism. After contracting COVID-19 and pneumonia in 2020, she found little help for her symptoms of long COVID and chronic asthma until she finally saw a Black doctor. Breathing, an act most people take for granted, becomes another marker of discrimination here.
Although Richard’s call to action toward the end could be fleshed out a bit more, her account of finding her voice and claiming authorship of her own story inspires and challenges. “Black Girl from a White Suburb” isn’t the most dramatic or profound memoir-style show that I’ve seen, but its very ordinariness gives it an undeniable ring of truth. It feels as though Richard has invited us into her office (handsomely designed by Shokie Tseumah with props by Tyson Carter) to share her story — one that’s certainly worth listening to.
Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.
Review: “Black Girl from a White Suburb” (3 stars)
When: Through October 4
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Where: American Blues Theater, 5627 N. Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 1 hour
Tickets: $34.50-$64.50 at 773-654-3103 and americanbluestheater.com