Weekend Edition Saturday

Richard Pryor occupies his own special category in comedy. He played Las Vegas and made popular movies, and performed routines that were almost short stories — searing, profane and moving.

Pryor grew up in his grandmother's brothel in Peoria, Ill.; she beat him, too. He was expelled from high school and enlisted in the U.S. Army, but spent much of his military stint in prison. And with a special fever of genius — torched by drugs, fueled by grief and enlivened by exhilaration — he created unforgettable depictions of what it's like to feel left out of American life.

Marching bands, beauty queens and Chita Rivera are set to make their way down New York City's Fifth Avenue on Sunday for the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade.

With 80,000 marchers and 2 million onlookers, the event is one of the country's biggest ethnic celebrations.

In the run-up to the parade, rows of street vendors have lined up north of the parade route, in New York's East Harlem neighborhood — also known as Spanish Harlem for the wave of Puerto Ricans that settled here after World War II.

Throughout the entertainment industry, alumni of a tiny, vocational high school program are at work: building sets in Hollywood, mixing sound on Broadway, performing on TV shows like The Office. They're graduates of the Addison Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), an incubator for actors and theater technicians at the Hannaford Career Center in Middlebury, Vt.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Now strike up the band. Time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: From the red clay courts of Roland Garros to the hardwood courts of Miami and San Antonio. They're playing for championships this weekend. NPR's Tom Goldman joins us. Morning, Tom.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: How are you, Scott?

SIMON: I'm just fine thank you. And let's begin with tennis and Les French Open. Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova are playing at the very moment, as we're speaking, at the women's singles finals.

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

It's not often that you get to take a swimming lesson from a box office idol.

ESTHER WILLIAMS: See if you can lift your elbow until you stretch that arm out straight. Oh, you're going to improve your stroke so much just this afternoon. You'll see.