emboldened by the idea that I was going to succeed.
Around that time, I met Sam and we moved to New York. It never dawned on me that there were obstacles in my path.”
One of Richardson’s biggest roles was in the musical “The Fighting Temptations” in which she appears as the main antagonist, the hypercritical Paulina Pritchett.
“Georgia Allen said to always, tell the truth and never do anything the same way,” she tells Variety. “Find ways to vary it.
“Always listen for melodies in the way people talk. The tone may be same, but inflections will always be different. So listen to different melodies.”
“And Diana Sands said before you go onstage, count backwards from 100 to get yourself centered — so everything else will fall away and you will be totally focused on where you are, in the moment.”
“Still, to this day, I stand in the wings before my entrance and count from 100.”
In 2014, Richardson received a Tony Award nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Play for her performance in the play A Raisin in the Sun.
This was her second appearance on Broadway after her debut in the 2009 revival of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. She also appeared in Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway in the 2018-19 season.
While still focusing on how to better the Black community, Richardson shares, “The people who are about change are about peaceful protest, and that’s what we have been. But now it’s time to take all that aggression and storm the ballot boxes.”