Leslie Holland Pryor is an arts educator, theatre director, and actor. Leslie’s theatre career included breaking racial barriers in Chicago Area Theatre (thanks to mentorship from the Black community) and gained employment as the first Black female in multiple venues, companies and institutions. As Steppenwolf Theatre’s first Black female director and administrator, Leslie adapted NIKKI GIOVANNI: NEW SONG FOR A NEW DAY, and later Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf” at Chicago’s DuSable Museum. Later, Leslie adapted Toni and Slade Morrison’s “The Big Box” performing at Victory Gardens and at The Second City. While, attending the Augosto Baol’ Theatre of the Oppressed Institute in Rio de Janeiro, Leslie finally saw the capacity for theatre being a tool for social change. Currently, Leslie Chairs the Performing Arts Department at an independent school in Chicago where she initiated racial and social oppression programming that evolved from Diversity the current iteration – DEI.
