Award-winning musician and storyteller Rain Perry brings her deeply personal and thought-provoking solo show, This Is Water, to The Broadwater Second Stage for a nine-show run during the 2025 Hollywood Fringe Festival. Blending personal narrative, historical reflection, and original music, This Is Water is one white woman’s journey—told with humor and heart–of looking anew at her white childhood, grappling with race, privilege, and identity.
In response to the social reckoning of 2020-2021, Perry set out to examine race in the best way she knew how: by looking inward. She began writing down every memory that had anything to do with race, uncovering how her own history shaped her worldview. The result was her 2022 recording "A White Album." Now in 2025, several songs from that record find their way into "This Is Water," a theatrical performance that responds directly to the perilous moment in which we find ourselves now. Rain holds up a mirror both to herself and her audience, creating an empathetic space for those who may feel defensive or uneasy, or who feel they have already "done the work.”
"All big social issues are best told through a personal story," Perry explains. "I wanted to challenge myself to hold myself accountable onstage and hope audiences will do the same."
Through live music, song, multimedia, and storytelling, Perry brings to life formative moments—from a childhood story about her (white) mother’s Black childhood friend to her own reckoning with white feminism. While the workshop production of This Is Water initially felt like a blend of a TED Talk and a concert, it was originally conceived as a play. The team has since worked to make it more theatrical, deeply personal, and both vulnerable and urgent: a personal reckoning told with honesty, warmth, and live music. Perry strips away academic detachment and grounding every historical reference in personal experience. The show encourages audiences to move beyond defensiveness, embrace discomfort, and engage in a deeper conversation about race in America.
"When we first promoted this show, we feared ‘preaching to the choir’ in my little white hometown of Ojai," Perry says. "But we quickly realized–there is no choir. Even those of us who see ourselves as ‘doing the work’ have more to learn. My hope is that audiences leave more curious, less defensive, and, ultimately, ready to open their hearts."
With an evocative soundtrack performed live, personal storytelling, and a bold yet inviting approach, This Is Water offers an opportunity for audiences to reflect, question, and--perhaps most importantly--walk away humming the songs.
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