Racquel McKenzie is a native of Jamaica, hailing from Spanishtown, Jamaica. By the age of two she made the big move to America and settled in Chicago. Growing up with a business man for a father and a dancer for a mother she was built to make performance her business. She states, “My mom danced with the Alvin Ailey dance company and she toured all over the Caribbean before coming here. Once we got to the states my dad showed me how to build a business solely on a dream. Together they both inspired me”. Through grade school and secondary school she performed in many plays, talent shows, dance shows, and as a second violinist in her school’s orchestra. Not only did she shine artistically but she also played basketball and ran track; receiving medals in both. In high school she performed in a variety of shows ranging from witty satire to orchestral performances; from Anything Goes to the Harlem sounds of Ragtime. She graduated with honors and set forth to achieve a degree in theater.
Racquel graduated from Southern Illinois University Carbondale with her BA in theater. While in school she appeared in, Anton Chekhov’s The Proposal, One Fine Day, and Box Office: A History. She was also seen as Abigail in The Crucible, Miss Shields in A Christmas Story, Beneatha in A Raisin in the Sun, and as Esther in Intimate Apparel. Half way through her college career tragedy struck and she lost her mother unexpectedly but was still able to finish off the semester with high marks and graduated Cum Laude in 2010. She remarks, “Nothing can ever hold me back. I’ve been through one of the most disparaging things a young person could go through and I still finished strong. If I can do that I can do anything”. She was President of the Africana Theater Lab, the only registered student organization for the theater, for her last two years as well as a student representative on the Recruitment and Retention board for SIUC’s theater and from that taught African Dance workshops for IHSF. She received awards including Outstanding Service in Theater, the Ira Aldridge/Shirlene Holmes Award for service and excellence in theater, the Verizon Scholarship for excellence in Theater and a KCACTF commendation for an exemplary performance in Box Office: A History.
Her professional works began with the St. Louis Black Repertoire Theater’s production of Death and the King’s Horseman. Since then she has been seen as Suzanne in McLeod Summer Playhouse’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile and as a featured ensemble in All Shook Up. Soon after she began an international tour through Barbados, England, and Nigeria in which she played Elizabeth in Seven and Ayisatu in Preemptive. After returning to the states she became a veteran dancer with Gorilla Tango Theater performing in 5 of their 6 running nerd burlesque shows including Don’t Blink; A Doctor Who Burlesque and A Nude Hope; A Star Wars Burlesque. After being a resident actor for The Murder Mystery Company she was promoted to Director in 2014 and moved to Phoenix to run her own troupe and then became a performance coach receiving another troupe in San Jose.
Since relocating to Phoenix, she has been seen on the stages of Childsplay Theatre, Stray Cat Theatre, Southwest Shakespeare Company, Flagstaff Shakespeare Company, Emerson Theatre Collaborative, and Black Theatre Troupe. For Racquel this is just the launching pad for a missile of works that are yet to come. "I'll float like a butterfly and sting like a bee...or just try my best in every moment."