Fried Chicken and Latkes

Woodstock Fringe is thrilled to present RAIN PRYOR's funny, poignant, brilliant and NAACP award winning one-person play, Fried Chicken and Latkes.

RAIN PRYOR, daughter of Comedy Legend RICHARD PRYOR is a Director, Actor, Stand up Comedian, Writer and Artistic director of Strand Theatre in Baltimore, Writer. Based on Rain's life, this play is an irreverent and poignant look at racism in the late 60’s early 70’s. Rain completely wrote and created her show including adding some of her own original music and lyrics to the production. Rain was a Los Angeles Times "Critics Choice" and her singing voice and sense of timing were hailed as rare gifts. Fried Chicken and Latkes has earned rave reviews from the US to the UK and begins an extended run Off Broadway mid-July.

Fried Chicken and Latkes played to sold out crowds and standing ovations every night at the 375 seat Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills, CA, and repeated that success at the Culture Project in New York, Chicago, Ohio, Virginia, Texas, and Scotland.

Growing up Black and Jewish gives Rain a unique perspective on race, religion and spirituality. She shares her views and has lead panel discussions on diversity in education and in the entertainment industry at Princeton University, The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore.

CBS News Report - 'Rain Pryor: Sahlom My Brothers'

Rain on CNN

Rain Pryor

Rain Pryor, director, stand up, dynamic speaker, acting teacher, award winning actress, singer, two time award nominated author, and mother.

"Fried Chicken and Latkes" is an NAACP award winning, DC Black Theatre Festival award nominated solo show based on her life. It is a irreverent and, poignant look at racism in the late 60’s early 70’s, that confronts stereotypes, and her iconic father Richard Pryor. Rain completely wrote, created, and wrote some original music.

Pryor initially made her television debut in 1989 as a series regular, T.J., on the hit ABC series Head of the Class, a character adopted from Pryor’s own monologs at the request of ABC producers during her second audition.

Pryor starred for several years opposite Sherilyn Fenn and Lynn Redgrave, as Jackie, the lipstick lesbian drug addict on the Showtime series Rude Awakening, and has additionally guest starred on network television series such as The Division and Chicago Hope. She has appeared numerous times on both Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, as well as The Late Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and Tavis Smiley and The Greenroom with Paul Provenza Showtime.

Rain’s stage credits include playing the title role of Billy Holiday in the UK tour of the Billie Holiday Story and the title role of Ella Fitzgerald in the UK premier of Ella, Meet Marilyn. Rain was teamed up with award winning UK Soap actress Sally Lyndsay. She’s performed in the Los Angeles production of Eve Ensler's, Vagina Monologues, with Nora Dunn of Saturday Night Live fame and Charlene Tilton, Cookin' With Gas, with the Groundlings improvisation troupe, The Exonerated with critically acclaimed actor Aidan Quinn, and, The Who's Tommy at the La Jolla Playhouse.
Rain currently resides in Baltimore MD where she started the non-profit Theatre Works with teaching artist Joan Weber. She is also a full time theatre director, and has just been named the Artistic Director for the Strand Theater Company.

Born in 1969, daughter of Richard Pryor and Shelley Bonis. She was raised Jewish by her mother and grandmother, and graduated from Beverly hills high school. It took her many years to connect to her famous and womanizing father, but also to come to terms with the combination of her religious and racial heritages, as her own person and performer.

According to CBS, these issues were a struggle throughout her career : "even as she played a lesbian junkie on Showtime's "Rude Awakening," Hollywood told her she wasn't black enough, she wasn't white enough, she wasn't pretty enough. " (CBS Feb 2009)
Fried Chicken and Latkes is in a sense an exploration of the question of identity and multiculturalism, and addresses the issue of being the child of a celebrity. quote "I'm Black and Jewish. Which mean's I'm proud, but yet I feel so guilty for it! "

Rain Pryor, on her journey and her performance: "because I'm standing on my own two feet and I have become Rain, I am comfortable with being a Pryor," she says. "I feel it's my right, it's my legacy. What I'm doing up there on that stage is the real tribute.
"I'm black and a Jew! Shalom, my brothers! Oy vey!"
(CBS Feb 2009)

"I'm not doing it to be him, I'm doing to be me"
"My goals are just to be a good person. (...) (youtube interview)