Q: You’re both comic actresses and dancers (Live Action Set, Theatre de la Jeune Lune) with the same last name, but you’re not related. Do you wish you were a sister act?
SARA: We pretend. We recently did a Fringe show called The Nosdrahcir Sisters about these broke vaudeville sisters—feather boas, the whole bit—and I think it helped the conceit that Kim and I have the same last name. So now we just call ourselves the Richardson sisters.
KIM: I’m okay with sharing my Richardson.
SR: Me, too.
Q: This month, you’re at the Southern Theater for the first annual Brouhaha Comedy Festival, with Jim Lichtscheidl, Sarah Agnew, David Hanbury—the best comic actors in town. What will you perform?
SR: The Richardson Sisters: The Art of Seduction. Yes, ladies—we’ll show you how it’s done.
KR: It’s about this sweet but doofusy everywoman who doesn’t realize she isn’t an object of love.
SR: This isn’t autobiographical in any way.
KR: Well, there has to be an element of truth for humor to resonate. Things that strike you as funny in life will be funny onstage.
Q: Like what?
KR: Falling down is always funny. Every comic actor should be able to make three funny faces and have one good pratfall in their arsenal.
Q: There’s a persistent stereotype that women can’t be funny.
SR: Comedy happens when people’s flaws are exposed. But women are often cast as the ingénue: They have to make someone fall in love with them. They have to be delicate.
KR: Not trip or get the hiccups.
Q: What do you do if a show bombs?
KR: Luckily, that hasn’t happened to us yet. But if it did, we’d turn out the lights and run.
The Brouhaha Comedy Festival runs January 19 to 23 at the Southern Theater. southerntheater.org
