Draft:Rafi S. Perez

Rafi S. Pérez

Rafaela “Rafi” Sofía Pérez Graham (born 2002) is a Catalan-American actress, singer, and polyglot. While attending the University of Southern California, she gained notoriety within the community due to her performances and passion for language. She is most known for originating the role of Darnell Johnson in Last Night at the Odyssey, an Off-Broadway show featured at the New York Playwrights Festival.

Early Life

She was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Courtney Pérez and Tomás Pérez-Zafón, a former professional soccer player. She has two brothers, Nicolás and Tomás. She moved to Atlanta at age 2, where she was raised in a bilingual home, speaking English and Spanish. She started singing at Sandy Springs Music and eventually joined the Grammy-award winning Atlanta Boy Choir in 2013. She started taking Mandarin Chinese classes at her high school and continued into college, giving her conversational Mandarin skills. She helped launch diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and led an affinity group for multiracial and multiethnic students at her high school as well. Throughout her career, she states that she hopes to represent populations whose stories are less often told.

At age 15, she learned Catalan to keep in contact with cousins in Spain. She then learned basic Japanese while interning in a medical clinic for Japanese expatriates in Atlanta. Bored during the COVID-19 lockdown, she learned French to communicate with friends in Paris. After graduating high school, she was admitted to USC, majoring in Theatre Acting and minoring in East Asian Languages and Cultures. Pérez started transitioning sometime during her time at USC. She is also openly Buddhist.

Early Career

In high school, Pérez starred in Little Shop of Horrors as Seymour Krelborn, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as Tumnus, and Mary Poppins as Neleus. She also participated in her high school productions of Mulan, 13, Romeo and Juliet, and Willy Wonka.

Later, at USC, she starred in two black-majority shows: In the Red and Brown Water and Once on this Island. In a review of the latter show notes Pérez’s compelling work and describes her as a vocal standout. She has performed at some famous venues such as Carnegie Hall, the WorldStrides Choral Competition in Orlando, and at the indie spot in Atlanta called Eddie’s Attic. She received a Maestro Award for her performance in Orlando. She has performed as a soloist with the Atlanta Boy Choir in Halifax, Canada and at the beatification of John Paul II in Poland and Czechia. As an upperclassman at USC, she starred in two LGBT-majority casts: Hit the Wall and RENT.