Actress, Singer, Dramatist

Richarda Abrams, daughter of the late Dr. Muhal Richard Abrams, musician/composer/visionary/co-founder of the Association For The Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), is a three-time AUDELCO award-winning actress/singer/playwright/producer of First By Faith: The Life Of Mary McLeod Bethune, receiving the 2019 AUDELCO VIV Award for Solo Performance of the Year.  First By Faith SOLDOUT the National Black Theatre Festival, and was named the Best Of Solo Theatre in the last 10 years by United Solo Theatre Festival, winning their 2018 Best Educational Show Award, also receiving a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council grant. www.FirstByFaith.com 

Richarda, recorded the CD SONG FOR ALL (Black Saint Records) with her dad and performed in Muhal Richard Abrams’ Ensemble.  Richarda is a member of Amina Claudine Myers' Generation IV a female gospel group, Myers’ Voice Choir and has performed at NYC Winter Jazz, Bric Jazz Festivals, and Sons D'Hiver Music Festival, FRANCE.

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Richarda’s theatrical performances include Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Ivoryton Playhouse), Last Days of Judas Iscariot, director Estelle Parsons (La Mama) and Fear Itself (Crossroads).  Off Broadway performances: The Public Theater, Cherry Lane, 2nd Stage, Acting Company, Multi Stages, Theatre 167, 14th Street Y, Yara and European tours and UKRAINE.  Richarda’s film and television credits include:  The Subject by Chisa Hutchinson, The Riverside Bench, Oreos With Attitude (Showtime), Sesame Street, One Life To Live, As The World Turns, Cosby, and LIFETIME’s Sherri.

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Richarda is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Experimental Theatre Wing and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors in Acting. She received a Master of Arts in Educational Theater, from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, studying Drama and Theatre in Education abroad at the University of Leeds, Bretton Hall College in ENGLAND. Memberships include: AEA, SAG-AFTRA, AACM, Lifetime Member of the Actors Studio, Dramatists Guild, NYWIFT & League of Professional Theatre Women where she has served on the Board. Richarda is currently writing Bethune (working title), a full length play about the great African American heroine Mary McLeod Bethune, a world-renowned educator and civil rights activist who founded one of the first Historically Black Universities in the United States.  First By Faith: The Life of Mary McLeod Bethune and Bethune are fiscally sponsored projects of New York Foundation for the Arts.  Bethune has received a NYSCA grant. www.RichardaAbrams.com