RAIN PRYOR is a dynamic speaker, award winning actress, singer, comedian, two time award nominated author, and daughter of the late legendary comedian Richard Pryor.
Pryor has been performing as a Jazz/Blues vocalist since 1993, having played to sold out crowds in Los Angeles, DC, Hong Kong, Scotland and London where she released a live Jazz/Blues performance CD Rain Pryor Live in London. Her television debut in 1989 was 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. Her current show, Pryor Experience, a Jazz/Blues Comedy Cabaret, recently headlined the world famous Hippodrome Theater in Baltimore Maryland.
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 guest-starred on network television series such as The Division and Chicago Hope. She has appeared numerous times with Jay Leno, as well as The Late Late Late Show with both Craig Ferguson and Tavis Smiley.
Stage credits include playing the title role of Billie 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. Pryor has 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. Pryor’s award-winning autobiographical solo show, Fried Chicken and Latkes, is a funny, irreverent and poignant look at racism in the late 60s early 70s.
AARON ANDROH is a graduate of Coppin State University with a Bachelor Degree in Urban Arts/Arts Administration concentration and is currently studying for a Masters in Public Administration at the University of Baltimore. He has performed many times at the Arena Players Inc, the oldest and continuously running African American Theatre Company in the United States. Of his many roles, most notable for him were: the 59th Season opener Smokey Joe’s Café; The Man in Blues in the Night; and Papa Du in One Mo’ Time, Molokov in Chess, and being an ensemble member in the psyche drama Maafa.
KERMIT DUNKELBERG is Managing Director and co-founder, with Kim Mancuso, of Pilgrim Theatre Research and Performance Collaborative, with whom he has performed in the US, Latin America, and Eastern and Western Europe. His work with Pilgrim includes “Moon Over Dark Street,” “Letters from Sarajevo,” “Faust,” At Ko, he has appeared in Laura Harrington’s N (Bonaparte), as “N”, and “The House Not Touched by Death.” He also regularly hosts post-show discussions at Ko. Dunkleberg has also performed with Serious Play! in the title role of Milan Dragecevich’s “Milosevic at the Hague” on tour in Serbia, where he was the first actor to portray the former Serbian dictator onstage. He also recently played Clov in Serious Play!’s production of Beckett’s “Endgame.” He has a PhD in Performance Studies from New York University, and works in a leadership role at Holyoke Community College.
OBED GANT is a young actor, singer, and photographer based in the DMV, graduating Class of 2020 from Charles Herbert Flowers High School located in Prince George’s County, Maryland. His most recent roles have been Jimmy Early from DreamGirls and Tybalt from Romeo and Juliet. Mr. Gant is also locally known for his photography as the face of OGPHOTOGRAPHY. He has taken pictures for multiple organizations such as the Prince George’s Fire Department Fire Cadet Program and First Baptist Church of Glenarden. As a member of the Unashamed Worship Team, Mr. Gant has been featured in music videos and soundtracks. He is currently working on solo and collaborative music projects as he enters his first year of college at Coppin State University.
DOMINIC GLADDEN is a graduate of Morgan State University, with a Bachelors in Theatre Arts. He has performed with Baltimore area theatre companies such as, Single Carrot, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, and the historic Arena Players. He performed in the 2010 production of The Magic City Massacre under the direction of its playwright, Deletta Gillespie, for his college Alma Mater’s Fall Season.
AZYA MAXTON is an actress, writer and educator with over twenty years experience as a teaching artist, 13 of which have been in Baltimore. She received her B.A. in Theatre from Clark Atlanta University, and her M.F.A in Theatre from the University of Louisville. An avid reader and writer, Asia is currently writing two books. One is about her experiences teaching.
LAURIE McCANTS co-founded the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (BTE) in 1978. In 2010, she was named an “Actor of Distinguished Achievement” through a Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship. She has served as Board President of the national Network of Ensemble Theaters, and is currently a Trustee for Theatre Communications Group. She was composer Julia Wolfe’s “coal region consultant” for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner, ANTHRACITE FIELDS. Her solo show INDUSTRIOUS ANGELS was created and performed at the Ko Festival of Performance in Amherst, Massachusetts, and she was honored to perform at Ko again in OK OK, a documentary theatre piece about the troubled history of the home state she shares with the piece’s creator, Katie Pearl.
JOSHUA McNAIR is an LA based actor, originally from Randallstown, Maryland. Joshua has been performing since the youthful age of four, studying theatre and has recently graduated for his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts at the New York Film Academy. Joshua has been in many plays, musicals, and shorts from The Wiz and The Dutchman to Lysistrata and Much Ado About Nothing and a plethora of other shows throughout his career. Joshua continues to perform and create content to bring forth new perspectives and unity.
RACHEL RECKLING is excited to be reading for Deletta Gillespie’s play on the Tulsa Race Riot. Rachel is an actress in Baltimore, MD and has been performing all around the city and county since 2009. She has worked with many theater company’s including The Strand, Baltimore Rock Opera Society, Pumpkin Theater, Submersive Theater and many more. Rachel would like to thank her friends and family for always supporting her acting career and thank Deletta for thinking of her for this production.
GERARD STROPNICKYteaches an annual “FIRST PERSON: Crafting Your Story for Performance” workshop at Ko. His exploration of story has taken him from the coal mines of Appalachia to war-torn northern Uganda, from south Georgia cotton fields to Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale frack pads. He’s worked with moonshiners, church choirs, recovering addicts, former child soldiers, rural teens, Mardi Gras Indian Queens in New Orleans, and more. A multi-faceted theatre artist (director, writer and actor) he co-founded Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (BTE), where he worked for the 34 years. These days he goes where he’s invited, applying community story to create original large-scale, site-specific performances in communities facing trauma, crisis, transition, or change. For this work, as well as for his role in co-founding the national Network of Ensemble Theaters, Jerry was honored as a United States Artists Fellow in 2010.
MICHAEL TODD is an artist, singer-songwriter, and educator from Oklahoma City. He has toured the world with music, singing around campfires in Alaska and subway platforms in New York City, as well as two European tours. He’s performed in children’s institutions from Chicago to Boston, on the stage in Baltimore and Connecticut, and along the turnpikes of Oklahoma. With his band he has opened for Starship, Sawyer Brown, Tracy Lawrence, BJ Thomas, Sammy Kershaw, Joe Diffee, Aaron Tippin, Pam Tillis & Lorrie Morgan, & Ray Stevens. Beyond his work as a production manager in the concert business with OKC BACKUP and currently the Sooner Theatre in Norman, and as a Wedding Singer/DJ with Full Circle Melody, he has recorded seven albums and written three musicals, including two children’s albums, JAMINALZ JAMZ A-Z. He has taught in the music and theatre programs at Oklahoma City University and Towson University. His youth education experience extends from Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre, to Baltimore’s Silver Penny Program, Goddard School, Chicago’s Windy City Players, and Oklahoma Children’s Theatre. He has dedicated his life to the creation of art and the education of young people
QUINCY VICKS is a proud alumnus of Morgan State University, where he earned his B.A. in Theatre Arts. He currently serves as an actor, musician and teaching artist in the Baltimore and DC area. Recent theatre credits include August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson (TheatreMorgan), Jingle ARRRGH the Way (Red Branch Theatre Company), the Helen Hayes Awards Recommended production of Crystal Creek Motel (Flying V Theatre), and Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost (Chesapeake Shakespeare Company).
LOUIS HOWARD WILLIAMS, III is a Baltimore-bred Storyteller, Actor, Writer, Director and Production Manager. He is currently in his Senior year at Coppin State University as an Urban Arts Major. He previously worked as a Manager and Performing Artist at WombWork Productions Inc., Baltimore’s Social Change Theatre Company. He is an African-centered Artist who believes deeply in the power that storytelling has in energizing communities and imparting lessons that illuminate often forgotten truths of the human experience. Louis has previously appeared in productions such as Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play (2018) in the character of C.J Memphis and in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (2019) in the character of George Murchison. In February, he Stage Managed Rapid Lemon’s Production of Give Me Moonlight (2020). Most recently, he worked as a stagehand for The Arena Player’s productions of Purlie and The Piano Lesson. Louis is excited to continue his theatrical training both onstage and backstage!
POST-SHOW PANELIST:
DARYL DAVIS is an American R&B and blues musician, activist, author, actor and bandleader. Known for his energetic style of boogie-woogie piano, Davis has played with such musicians as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, B. B. King, and Bruce Hornsby. His efforts to improve race relations, in which as an African-American he engaged with members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), have been reported on by media such as CNN, NPR, and The Washington Post.
Davis is a Christian and has used his religious beliefs to convince Klansmen to leave and denounce the KKK. He is the subject of the 2016 documentary Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America.
