She had moved from India to live the American dream. Priyanka Shetty came to study acting at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, a liberal place of clipped lawns and classical architecture rated in one survey as the happiest city in America.

But what she found was isolation and discomfort because of her race and, as the era of Donald Trump dawned, a nation on the cusp of hostility towards immigrants like her. Then came a white supremacist march through Charlottesville and an explosion of racist violence that left one woman dead.

Shetty combines the personal and political in a one-woman show, #Charlottesville, currently receiving its premiere at the Keegan Theatre in Washington. Based on verbatim interviews with more than a hundred local residents, court transcripts and political speeches, it argues that Charlottesville was a warning from history that went unheeded.

When Shetty, from Bangalore in southern India, auditioned for a master of fine arts degree in acting at the University of Virginia in 2015, Barack Obama was still president.

Charlottesville is a liberal city in a conservative region but Shetty did not always feel welcome. She was out of town when hundreds of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville for a “Unite the Right” rally on 11 and 12 August 2017, ostensibly protesting the planned removal of a statue of the Confederate general Robert E Lee. Clashes with anti-racism demonstrators broke out both days, resulting in the death of Heather Heyer and the injury of 35.

Shetty speaks about four warnings in the form of violent far right protests that the country has ignored and believes that her play will serve as a reminder of the ongoing relevance of those events.