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The best kept secret in music
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To Be Young, Jewish and black
Irreverent hilarity spices up "Fried Chicken and Latkes," ... Rain Pryor's account of growing up black, Jewish and Richard Pryor's daughter is an effective showcase for ripe talent.
Pryor, accompanied by ace musical director Gail Johnson, starts in swinging, her opening number putting thematic new lyrics to Kander and Ebb's "Cabaret": "What's the big deal if I'm black and a Jew?/ In temple, I sing the blues. / Life is fried chicken and latke's, too:/ I'll make Shabbat for you!" This insouciance just barely prepares her audience for the ribald, bumptious scenario that ensues.
Pryor's crazy-quilt chronological trajectory illuminates her personal and professional saga with instant characterizations, musical numbers and freewheeling aphorisms that range from corny to convulsive under Tracy Silver's direction, augmented by Clinton Derriks-Carroll. Pryor's Modigliani-moppet expressions, kinetic ease, powerful singing voice comic ingenuity are invaluable assets. Conversing with the audience as her paternal grandmother (which is worth the whole enterprise), or sporting an Afro the size of Belize (designed by John Stapleton), Pryor's is wickedly funny and sharply observant, as in her uproarious send-ups of her mother and maternal grandmother. ...
Pryor's fertile material and cathartic intent fully warrant full-length expansion beyond this cabaret-style format. Given the clamor at the reviewed performance, she certainly has the audience to justify such architectural additions. - Los Angeles Times - Critics Choice - David C. Nichols
Say loud: "I'm black, Jewish, and proud." That update of a 1960's aphorism would seem appropriate for Rain Pryor, whose cabaret-style show exhibits an impressive range of talent, from comedy and drama to singing and shaking one's groove thing. The daughter of Richard Pryor, she complains not only of the confusion of race and religious identity but also of familial antagonism. Apparently her famous father bought her a multicolored Afro wig and a Mr. Microphone while her half sister got a house and trust fund.
But la Pryor certainly got the better part of the bargain in talent genes, exhibited by her hilarious, spot -on soul sista' Yiddishkeit rap and schtick, plus facility for general mimicry that ameliorates the pain she also went through. "For years I walked around like a demon possessed poodle," Pryor claims, but to her credit she is not playing just for laughs. ... Pryor also pulls out another ace: her singing voice. It proves supple and strong, most movingly in her rendition of Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach's "God Give Me Strength" .... Pryor gets to go to the head of the class for bravado, charm, and honesty, whether she is depicting her struggle for identity in the never-ending class war in Beverly Hills or showing us her delightfully foul mouthed grandmother. - Brad Scheiber
The Canon Theater proves that “Real women have curves” and overcome life’s obstacles by making “Fried Chicken and Latke's.”
Rain Pryor (the daughter of legendary comedian Richard Pryor) has become a captivating beauty. The skinny child actress, whose frizzy hair was more prominent than her face as Tomboy T.J. Jones on the sitcom “Head of the Class,” uses that same hair as a benevolent distraction from a voluptuous body and a face that captures the loveliness for which Pablo Picasso painted his women. She is a unique beauty, in a class of her own.
On stage, Pryor has no bad side or angle. She is like a Rococo painting: Gloriously complicated eye candy. But what really makes her one-woman show “Fried Chicken and Latke's” soar, is Pryor’s vulnerability and candor. She scoops the National Enquirer with priceless stories that only the daughter of Richard Pryor could reveal. However, this is not a “Daddy Dearest” tale. This is a love song to her family and friends.
The play recalls Rain Pryor’s tumultuous life, growing up in Beverly Hills as the daughter of the famous comedian and a Jewish mother. “I was proud, but felt so guilty for it,” confesses Rain. From musician Miles Davis, playing his horn as a good-night lullaby to Hollywood Lawn (a transvestite and Andy Warhol associate), Rain had an array of baby sitters and characters parading through her life. Sometimes she felt that “everybody belonged to a club that she didn’t receive the password for.”
Although her father and mother divorced when she was six months old (and she lived with her mother), her grandmothers richly influenced Rain. Her maternal grandmother taught Rain to make potato latkes while telling her how special she was and that “Sammy Davis Jr. was famous for being black and Jewish.” Her fraternal grandmother, who gave her the recipe for fried chicken, was a brothel madam: “Remember, you come from a long line of madam's, whores and pimps on your father’s side and on your mother’s side you come from a line of biblical proportions.”
Rain is a remarkable actress and gifted singer. Her characterizations are three-dimensional. She disappears and her Jewish grandmother and Richard Pryor’s mother appear. You forget that Rain is just acting. Her characterization of Richard Pryor’s mother was so moving that a few members of the audience began communicating with her. Rain didn’t miss a beat and wonderfully improvised. Rain is her father’s daughter – a true talent! (P.S.: The lighting design by Brian Knox was superb.)
- Jerome Robinson Tolucan Times
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Bio
Rain Pryor is a dynamic speaker, spokesperson, award winning actress, singer, writer, comedian and, a producer. Now that's quite a few hats to wear, but, they all fit and every one of them reflects her eclectic mix of Judaism and her African American roots. One of Rain mentors told her, "if you wait for the world to come to you, you will always be waiting - find what you want to do and go do it!" She is a woman who believes in constantly creating and inspiring others to do their best and wants people to know if you live simply, honor the truth, and follow your passion in life, dreams can come true.
Rain has a hit stage show that she performs called "Fried Chicken and Latkes" which is based on her life. It is a funny and poignant affirmation to remove the world of race and class and look at the human within. She has also headlined as a comedian at comedy clubs and the famous Comedy Store on the Sunset strip.
She is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA and Actors Equity Association.
2005 began with 4 NAACP Theatre Award nominations, Best Female Performer Equity, Best Original Playwright Equity, Best Direction, Best Sound Design.
Rain won the award for Best Female Performer Equity at the NAACP awards on February 21, 2005.
Rain was recently named the recipient of the 2005 Invisible Theatre's Goldie Klein Guest Artist Award. In 2004 Rain was nominated for Best Solo Performance in the Los Angeles version of the Tony's called the Ovation Awards, after a highly successful run of her one woman experience "Fried Chicken & Latkes".
Rain 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; for the Women's Center Stage Festival. The audiences and the standing ovations just kept on coming as Rain performed her show all over the country in 2004 and 2005 including the world famous Hippodrome in Baltimore, MD.
Rain completely wrote, created, and co-produced 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.
Rain's work is never done. She completed and released her critically acclaimed book entitled "Jokes My Father Never Taught Me" (Life, Love, and And Loss with Richard Pryor); which was also nominated for a 2007 NAACP Image Award.
She speaks around the country on themes of Unity, family and Judaism, bringing a unique and touching story to her talks.
In addition, Rain is an MS Lifelines Ambassador sponsored by Serono Biotechnologies. Her commitment to fight for a cure of Multiple Sclerosis has her hosting and speaking around the country to educate Family and Friends about MS treatment options and therapies, in honor of her dad.
Rain has been a working actor all her life who started on stage and made her television debut in 1989 as series regular T.J. on the hit ABC series Head of The Class. The character of T.J. was taken from one of Rain's characters that she presented to the ABC producers in her audition.
Rain, starred for several years opposite Sherilyn Fenn and Lynn Redgrave, as Jackie, the lipstick lesbian drug addict on the Showtime series Rude Awakening. She has guest starred on shows such as The Division, Chicago Hope ( with her father Richard Pryor) She has appeared in numerous independent features as well as Universal Pictures release of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and the ground breaking Melvin Van Peebles Film, Panther.
Rain has performed in the Los Angeles production of Eve Ensler's, Vagina Monologues at the Coronet Theatre, Cookin' With Gas, with the Groundlings improvisation troupe, The Who's Tommy at the La Jolla Playhouse; The staring role of Joan at the Globe Playhouse, Westside Story and Runaways, and Sisterella, which earned Rain in 1994 a nomination from the NAACP Theatre Awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical Equity.
Rain has never wanted to try and fill her fathers shoes - she has her own to fill and stands firm that life should never be filled with fear - In homage of her dad and being the first ever father daughter team to both have headlined at The Comedy store - Rain took to the stage built for her dad and wowed the crowd last year and repeated the feat by performing at the Comedy Club La Jolla. Rain likes to say "This aint my daddys stand-up - I am my own person up there" - "If your looking for Richard Pryor, ya better go rent a video!"
Over the years Rain has been honored to have been a guest with both Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, as well as The Late Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and a guest of everyone from Air America to the Tavis Smiley show.
Rain asks that you join her in the fight for a cure of Multiple Sclerosis by doing something as simple as giving a donation to your local MS chapter, or participate in a walk for MS once a year. Rain belie
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