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).
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.
In 1993–94, she wrote and directed the season opener, Waiting in Vain, an evening-length play based on a newspaper article of a young African American girl's death and exploring the issues of the working poor and returning veterans.
Drawing upon her deep experience as a performance maker, she staged educational, participatory civics workshops to aide businesses, schools and community organizations struggling against systemic racism to address "diversity issues".
In that space she nurtured the Saturday Girls, Medusa Speaks: An Artists' Collective, Sol y Soul and many, many more arts organizations dedicated to progressive social change from the ground up.
She became a lecturer on Theatre for Social Change at Catholic University and was appointed an Artistic Associate at Center Stage in Baltimore, MD, in 1998.
At Arena, she served as understudy for Trinidad Sisters, The Visit;and appeared as Kassandra in Agamemnon and His Daughters, directed by Molly Smith.
Their efforts led to the mass removal of thousands of SW residents, followed by a structured burn that leveled hundreds of local businesses and homes to the ground.
In the wake of the destruction, a handful of low-income housing projects surrounded by high-rise condos and Arena Stage (founded by Zelda Fichlander) rose from the ashes, but the loss of what had been a thriving community was never truly acknowledged or mourned.
Longtime colleagues Janet Stanford and Jennifer L. Nelson penned this remembrance for American Theater Magazine A documentary, entitled Walk With Me, features her creative contributions.