LA Premiere of NAKED IN ALASKA Opens in Bootleg Theater's Solo Queens Fest

After three sold-out, award-winning runs in international Fringe Festivals (New York City, Edinburgh, and Chicago), a critically-acclaimed Off-Broadway run, and a featured performance at the The Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska, Valerie Hager's autobiographical solo play about her years stripping in the Alaskan frontier will open at Bootleg Theater on Saturday, October 28 at 7:30 p.m. Directed by Scott Wesley Slavin, who also serves as dramaturg, "Naked In Alaska" runs through November 19, 2017. This is the first time Valerie will perform her story in the very city where her life as a stripper violently collapsed.

"Naked In Alaska" follows Valerie, a latchkey teenager with a meth addiction and an eating disorder as she fights to break through into her own coming-of-age story. When her new start spirals out of control shortly after becoming sober, she runs to her childhood best friend Raven for help. An evening that begins at a strip club to make some easy cash turns into a 10-year career that tests the limits of friendship and her will to survive. Told with a rockin' 90s playlist, live pole dancing, and over a dozen characters played by Hager herself, "Naked In Alaska" is an "unflinching... funny, fierce, and physically impressive solo show." (Edinburgh Spotlight)

The recipient of the 2013 Award for Outstanding Solo Performance from The New York City International Fringe Festival, 2013 Audience Favorite Award from the Chicago Fringe Festival, 2014 Pick of the Fest Award from Edinburgh's The New Current Magazine, and Time Out New York's four-star Critic's Pick and Recommended Show, "Naked In Alaska" is a visceral, fire-hot experience not-to-be-missed.

Valerie Hager is a former exotic dancer and an award-winning actor, writer-performer, teacher, and movement artist. She is a graduate of The School for Mime at Kenyon Los Angeles Premiere of "Naked In Alaska" Opens at Bootleg Theater .

College, Emmy Award-winner Matt Hoverman's Go-Solo Workshop, and acting and improv programs in Los Angeles and New York City. She is currently in training at The Actors Gang. Hager has performed at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum, 59E59 Theaters, Symphony Space NYC, and The Barrow Group MainStage; her television and film credits include Warner Brothers' The Invention of Lying, Comedy Central's Mind of Mencia, Discovery Channel's Guilty or Innocent, and the award-winning short film The Harshest Place. She is the founder of SOLOfire Workshops through which she teaches movement-based story-creation to individuals and groups across the U.S., including at The Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival and currently at Artworx LA, Greenway Court Theatre and Theatre of Hearts. Her earliest training began with her father, mime artist and Professor of Mime Jerry Hager, when she was five-performing as his silent sidekick Punky the Clown.

Bootleg Theater, named by Time Out as one of Los Angeles' "best performing arts centers," is a year-round, inclusive art space for original, boundary-defying live theater, music, and dance performances born from the diverse cultural and artistic landscape of Los Angeles. Bootleg supports and collaborates with the best of established and emerging music, theater, and dance artists to create daring, multi-disciplinary live experiences that are striking, contemporary and non-traditional. Bootleg Theater is proud to present its first-ever SOLO QUEENS FEST, featuring solo performances by local female artists. Bootleg has a fierce belief in the power of women in Art to create change in the world, and this festival will celebrate women and their life experiences. All three plays in the festival have been seen around the world, and now return to Los Angeles.

Tickets for "Naked In Alaska" are available online at http://nakedinalaska.com (showtimes vary). Tickets are $15 Stud/Sen, $20 GA, and group discounts are available. Additionally, there are two different Festival Passes: "See The Queens" Festival Pass for $50 includes 1 ticket to each solo show; "Be The Queen" Festival Pass for $125 includes 1 ticket to each solo show plus 1 ticket to each of the 3 solo technique workshops. Tickets for Valerie's solo technique workshop "SOLOfire: A Writing and Movement Workshop" are $30. Bootleg Theater is located at 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057. Street parking and a free lot is available at the church across the street at the intersection of Beverly and Roselake.

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