Women have been angry for a long time. The difference now is that some of them have stopped pretending otherwise.
Venessa Peruda’s solo show All the Rage plays The RAT on April 4, 5, 12, and 14 as part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival, and the title isn’t metaphorical. This is a show about female anger—where it comes from, why women are trained to hide it, and what happens when they stop.
“I’m reminding women of the innate and righteous power we all have inside of us. Our anger is sacred, and our collective anger can change this World.”
Peruda is a clown by training, which matters here. Clowning isn’t about telling jokes. It’s about making private emotions visible, externalizing the internal, letting an audience see something they recognize but rarely witness out loud. In this case, that something is rage—the slow-burn accumulation of being dismissed, interrupted, underpaid, disbelieved, touched without permission, told to smile, told to calm down, told their instincts are overreactions and their boundaries are drama.
“I think it’s hilarious and exciting that Patriarchy is so afraid of women’s collective power that they banned us from a whole human emotion: anger.”
The show didn’t come from nowhere. Peruda grew up in a single mom household with siblings she describes as people who “tortured and loved each other fiercely.” She went through years of fighting everything around her, nearly destroying herself in the process, before finding a way to channel it into something that could reach other people.
“I had a difficult upbringing which taught me that humor can not only soothe but bring people together. I was a good kid, until I wasn’t. I railed against the World and nearly destroyed myself in the process. Then I worked tirelessly to lift myself out of an old story that said I was supposed to stay small and accept the hand I was dealt.”
That phrase—stay small, accept the hand you’re dealt—is what the show pushes against. Peruda’s argument is that women have been systematically taught to mistrust their own emotional responses, and that the mistrust itself is a tool of control. Reclaiming anger isn’t self-indulgence. It’s self-defense.
“The greatest trick Patriarchy ever pulled was convincing women their anger was wrong and shameful. When in fact it is the key to our liberation, and the path to rebuild the World.”
The comedy in All the Rage works because Peruda isn’t trying to make any of this palatable. She’s not packaging rage into something easier to digest or adding a hopeful spin at the end. The show sits in the discomfort and finds the humor there—not to soften it, but to let an audience finally see it clearly.
Why make this show now? Peruda doesn’t dress the answer up.
“Because if you have to ask that you’re not paying attention. My feed is filled with furious women desperate for answers, for something to do with their inescapable rage they carry with them when they go to work, when they drop their kids off at school, or when they bravely try to go on a first date.”
What she’s describing is anger without an outlet—rage that doesn’t clock out, that follows women through mundane tasks and ordinary days, that lives in the body because there’s nowhere else for it to go. The show offers a release valve, or at least a room where nobody has to pretend.
“Women need this catharsis right now. We need to scream, we need to laugh, and we need to come to an understanding that we absolutely have the power to change things. We need this feral and therapeutic experience to realize we’re not alone.”
Peruda isn’t asking for approval. When someone asked who gave her permission to make this show, her answer was quick.
“The voices in my head. They said I don’t need permission.”
All the Rage runs April 4, 5, 12, and 14 at The RAT as part of FRIGID New York. Tickets available through frigid.nyc.
