Ojai's own Rain Perry, singer-songwriter known for her lyrical prowess and crystal-clear voice, has been working on a one-woman show, which opens Thursday, October 13 and runs through October 22nd (Thursday, Friday and Saturday both weekends) at Kim Maxwell Studio,  226 West Ojai Avenue, #102. All shows are at 8 p.m.

The show is named after David Foster Wallace's viral commencement address, "This Is Water," which emphasizes the true purpose of education and empathy. Perry was wrestling with questions of race and identity during the pandemic and George Floyd protests and found it the perfect metaphor. The show includes eight songs from her 9-song album "A White Album" which was just released and available on Itunes and Spotify or through her website. It debuted on the Folk Music Chart at no. 11 and has received rave reviews, including Glide Magazine's "it distill(s) complicated issues fraught with politics and passion through a prism of compassion and understanding."

Bill Bentley of Americana Highways magazine wrote, "There are times on "A White Album" where the whole thing feels like it is making the world tilt in a new direction. These are songs which are perfectly capable of giving life a whole new meaning. People like Rain Perry don’t come around that often. They just don’t."

Perry said one message is for white people to acknowledge their privilege and to question each other, or, as she said, "Calling people in," rather than calling them out. She also used the folk expression, "Collect your cousins," for a reckoning on race and culture.

This play is being directed by Kim Maxwell, who also directed Rain's much-acclaimed 2008 show, "Cinderblock Bookshelves," with accompaniment from Austin, Texas-based Mark Hallman. Perry said that a grant from the Ojai Arts Commission helped produce the play as well.  It "was a sequel of sorts to 'Cinderblock Bookshelves'," she said. “I want to look back at my same childhood, but this time through the lens of race.”

Hallman, owner of the iconic Congress House studio, has produced music by Carole King, Tom Russell (who recorded one of Rain's songs) and Eliza Gylkison and Ani Di Franco. He was the subject of a well-received 2016 documentary film, "The Shopkeeper," that Perry wrote and directed about the post-Napster travails of the music business, through Hallman's and other musicians' struggles to stay afloat in the streaming era.

Perry talked about growing up in Ojai, her eccentric family, early mentors and raising her children, as well as sharing insights into the creative side of her life, the success of selling a song, "Beautiful Tree," that became the theme of a popular CW Network show, "Life Unexpected," and her song "Yosemite" has been recorded by Tom Russell and Nanci Griffith.

We did not talk about Lake Casitas storage capacity, how grasshoppers turn into locusts or how Auguste Escoffier's military service informed his "brigade de cuisine" system.

For more information:

www.rainperry.com/this_is_water

Rain Perry's "White Album" which includes all nine songs on her show.

David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhhC_N6Bm_s