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Sridhar 'Sri' Rao is an American writer, director, and producer in New York City. He is best known as creator/showrunner of the Netflix series The Fame Game. He is also the author of Bollywood Kitchen, and starred in The Geffen Playhouse production of the same name. His company, Sri & Company, has a first look deal with Netflix.

Early life
Rao was born and raised in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania to parents who immigrated from India. He graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Television
Rao began his career in television as creator, showrunner, writer, and director of the TeenNick series What Goes On. The series is described as a coming-of-age drama about five teenagers growing up in a suburban neighborhood. Rao then served as Head Writer of General Hospital: Night Shift, for which his work was critically acclaimed. Following his stint with General Hospital, Rao sold numerous television pilots to networks including ABC, NBC, HBO Max, BBCAmerica, and The CW.

Netflix Deal

In 2021, Rao’s production company, Sri & Company, signed a first look deal with Netflix to create scripted and unscripted series for the streaming platform around the world. Sri & Company’s mission is to tell stories that center South Asian characters and artists, with a particular focus on women and the LGBTQ community. At the time the deal was announced, Rao spoke of his personal experience in the entertainment industry as a person of color: “For the longest time, no one in Hollywood was interested in my experiences as an Indian-American person. I often found myself creating worlds that were filled entirely of white characters. But I held on long enough to get to this point where the industry is slowly changing.”

Rao’s first series for Netflix was The Fame Game, which premiered on February 25, 2022. The suspenseful family drama stars Bollywood superstar Madhuri Dixit in her first-ever series role. It debuted in Netflix’s Top 10 most-watched series in twenty countries.

Films
Rao was the first American-born screenwriter to write a major Bollywood film, Baar Baar Dekho. The film features the hit song “Kala Chashma” which has over 1 billion views on Youtube. Rao also produced the Bollywood films New York and Badmaash Company, both in association with Yash Raj Films.

Bollywood Kitchen
Rao is the author of Bollywood Kitchen: Home-Cooked Indian Meals Paired With Unforgettable Bollywood Films. Rao has stated that as a first-generation American, the primary way he learned about his parents’ culture was through his mother’s cooking, and the Bollywood films his family watched after dinner every night. These two elements are paired together in Bollywood Kitchen, which is described as a “dinner-and-a-movie” cookbook.

In 2021, Bollywood Kitchen was adapted into a play by The Geffen Playhouse. The one-man show had its world premiere on January 15, 2021 for an eight-week run. During each performance, Rao invited the audience into his Manhattan apartment (virtually) to cook along with him, as he told the story of his family’s immigrant experience.