Rebecca Rice (1947–2002) was a performer, teacher, playwright, anti-racism/anti-oppression activist, and community-based artist. For over 30 years, she created theatre that impacted directly on the lives of people who are often overlooked by mainstream theatre. Biography Born in Tyler, Texas and relocated to Chicago at a young age with her parents and sister, it was through drama classes with Johnny Houston, a dedicated Chicago Park District employee who ran after-school and summertime recreation programs for children that Rice first realized she had a gift for singing, dancing and theater. After Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were both assassinated, like many who came of age in the 1960s she felt called to take action to right wrongs and redress social inequalities. Rice soon discovered the theater could not only be for entertainment, but to critically engage, uplift, memorialize and celebrate the lives of marginalized poor and working-class people. She traveled to New York City for a bit but landed in Washington, DC joined the Black Panther Party and began teaching at RAP, Inc. (a center for ex-addicts in the District). In 1970, she saw an ad for auditions for the Living Stage Theatre Company, the newly established community "outreach" and educational theatre arm of Arena Stage. Under the direction of Robert Alexander (1929–2008), Living Stage was emerging as one of the first multi-racial, improvisational theatre companies dedicated to art for social change in the nation. For 14 years (1970–1984), Rice was a lead actress and associate director at Living Stage. There she authored over 50 theatre works for audiences of all ages and abilities, and conducted thousands of workshop for children, youth and adults from the DC area including work in prisons, substance abuse rehabilitation facilities, shelters for the homeless and schools. In 1971, Rice published an article in off our backs, one of the earliest second-wave feminist publications to come out of the nation's capital, in which she reflects upon the transformative power of performance: I stand before the mirror and examine this face, my face. I know this face, I know the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the skin, the bones. Unique only in that they are together to make this face. I know this face, yes, but do I know its limitations? No. How many faces will I make today? What roles will this face portray? A black militant, a bigot, prostitute, infant, gorilla, guerilla, an