This is Water

This Is Water, a new solo show by award-winning musician and playwright Rain Perry in which she looks to her own family to tell a true story of American history, premiered at the 2025 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

As the pendulum has dramatically swung from cultural soul-searching to a moment when non-White history is being scrubbed from government websites, Perry asserts “I look at my life and I see what I see.”

After the social reckoning of 2020-2021, Perry—a singer-songwriter known for the theme song for the CW series Life Unexpected and other deeply personal work—set out to examine race the best way she knew how: by looking inward. She began writing down every memory she had that touched on race, uncovering how the people and the pop culture she grew up in shaped her worldview.

The result was her most recent record A White Album and her new theatrical memoir This Is Water — with a title inspired by the famous David Foster Wallace commencement address — a raw and engaging musical journey that blends storytelling, humor, and live music to challenge audiences to reflect on the invisible forces that shape us all.

Through family photos, first-hand recollections, and historical insights, Perry revisits formative moments—from a childhood story about her (White) mother’s Black childhood friend to her own reckoning with white feminism. The show invites audiences to engage with history in a way that is accessible, deeply personal, and ultimately hopeful.

"We feared ‘preaching to the choir’ when we first promoted the workshop production of this show," Perry explains. "But we quickly realized—there is no choir. Even those of us who consider ourselves ‘doing the work’ have blind spots. My hope is that audiences leave more curious and openhearted.

Learn more about Rain by visiting her website.