Staged Reading of BAGGAGE FROM BAGHDAD to be Presented at W.H.A.M. Festival

In honor of Women's History Month, the 7th Annual W.H.A.M. Festival of Manhattan will present Baggage From BaghDAD, a new solo play about the power of family and perseverance amid a harrowing past. Written and performed by Valerie David, the play will be presented as a staged reading at The Bernie Wohl Center at Goddard Riverside, 647 Columbus Avenue in NYC on Thursday, March 24 at 7:30 p.m. A talkback with Iraqi-Jewish-American filmmaker Carole Basri. Proceeds from the evening will be donated to both SaveTheChildren to help support the families of Ukraine and also the Goddard Riverside Performing Arts Conservatory.

Mirroring the struggle of today's Ukrainian refugees and reflecting rising global racial, religious and sexual intolerance, Baggage From BaghDAD is one Middle Eastern Jewish family's true inspirational journey as they are forced to flee religious persecution during the 1941 Iraqi "Farhud." It is the story of playwright and performer Valerie David's father, and his family's struggle to transcend their harrowing past as they build a new home in America. As father and daughter learn to love and to accept their differences, the importance of family takes center stage as she begins to understand how his tale of survival and perseverance shaped her convictions and her future.

Tickets are $20. Students and seniors: $15. Visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/baggage-from-baghdad-wham-2022-tickets-273689792537

Runtime: Approx. 60 minutes, plus post-show talkback. No latecomers will be seated.

Currently in development, Baggage From BaghDAD was first presented in April 2018 at the MENASA Artists Coalition cabaret night, with subsequent staged readings at the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival (August 2018) and Live & In Color in Connecticut (September 2018), where the play continued to evolve. In 2021, Baggage From BaghDAD was presented as a filmed staged reading in EAT's New Works Series. It was a semi-finalist for the 2021 Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award.

COVID-19 Policy: Full Vaccination Proof will be screened at the door to ensure this performance meets safety regulations that match that of New York City's cultural establishments. All guests must wear masks unless actively eating or drinking.

Valerie David (playwright/performer) is currently developing her new solo show Baggage From BaghDAD about her father and his family fleeing Iraq in 1941 from religious persecution. Her goal for Baggage From BaghDAD is to perform it both domestically and internationally as an educational piece to create awareness of the Farhud, an essential, important part of history that has largely been forgotten-a 1941 Middle Eastern pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad.

Valerie wrote and currently performs the award-winning, internationally acclaimed solo show, The Pink Hulk: One Woman's Journey to Find the Superhero Within.

She wrote the autobiographical comedic drama The Pink Hulk as a cancer survivor to express the empowerment she felt being able to find humor and superhero inner strength going through three bouts of cancer to become a 3-time cancer survivor-first Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Stage II Breast Cancer, and then Stage IV Metastatic Breast cancer, which she has conquered. Valerie is a true superhero-she currently has no evidence of disease-no trace of her cancer as of April 2019. The Pink Hulk has been accepted into over 45 different play festivals worldwide since its 2016 debut, performed in over 23 different cities, including touring in Europe, and is a testament TO NEVER GIVE UP! It has won several awards including the Audience Choice Award in the Shenandoah Fringe and WOW Award in Sweden's Gothenburg Fringe, and Valerie has been touring the show since 2016, including performances virtually throughout the pandemic. Valerie won the Act Solo Show Award in the Reykjavik Fringe Festival for her in-person performances in Iceland in July 2021. Valerie and The Pink Hulk have been featured on TV, radio, in publications and on podcasts, including NBC 4 New York, CBS, FOX, amNY, Heal magazine, The IndyStar, Breast Friends Cancer Support Radio Network, Mia's World, First Online With Fran, The Crisis Help Show, the Jim Masters Show! Live, Tamara L. Hunter's Service Hero Show and Reykjavik Fringe Festival podcast. A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts-Manhattan Campus and James Madison University, her credits include the Off-Broadway production of A Stoop on Orchard Street, Cookie in Rumors and Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life. Films: How I Became that Jewish Guy and Bridges and Tunnels. Valerie has also co-written several two-person plays and cabarets. Memberships include the Dramatists Guild, AEA and SAG-AFTRA. Valerie raises money through The Pink Hulk performances for domestic and international cancer organizations. For more info on Valerie and her show, visit https://pinkhulkplay.com/)

Rasa Allan Kazlas (director) lives and works in New York City, where she has performed on Broadway and Off-Broadway. Her acting and directing credits include plays that range from Neil Simon to Greek Tragedy. She has created and directed two poetry plays. The first one, Etched in Amber, used the works of Lithuanian poets in Lithuania and the diaspora in English translation. It was performed in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. The other poetry play, Caged Visions, was based on poetry written by inmates within the New York prison system. The production received an enthusiastic reception at the Playwrights Foundation Theatre. Rasa Allan Kazlas also directed Sam Shepard's play Fool for Love at the prominent Kamerni Teatar 55 in Sarajevo, which was then performed throughout Bosnia. Rasa has toured nine countries in the Middle East as a Cultural Ambassador for the State Department. She teaches theater at HB Studio in the West Village, and has a BA from Smith College.

Carole Basri (special talkback guest) is a lawyer and filmmaker. She's a visiting professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law and a visiting professor at Pericles Law School. In 2003, Ms. Basri was a member of the US State Department's "Future of Iraq" Project and a member of the Coalition Provisional Authority, with the Iraqi Reconstruction Development Council for Ambassador Bremer in Baghdad. Ms. Basri has Executive Produced a trilogy of films about Iraq's Jewish community and history: THE LIFE OF FRANK INY (1999), SEARCHING FOR BAGHDAD (2002), and THE LAST JEWS OF BAGHDAD (2005). The trilogy screened in over 80 premiere film festivals in the US, Canada, Israel and Europe, and was featured on PBS and JLTV. Ms. Basri received a B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Maris Heller (past director) is the founder of Maris Heller Studios, Maris has performed at Soho Repertory Theater, Primary Stages, The Gene Frankel Theater under the direction of renowned director Gene Frankel and has directed at the American Place Theater with founder/director Wynn Handman. Maris is a founding member of The First Amendment Comedy and Improvisation Co., and has directed numerous original works including solo performances, cabaret and, most notably, a special for PBS, "The Consuming Passions of Lydia Pinkham and Rev. Sylvester Graham". Maris has been an adjunct professor for speech and drama at City College of New York. She received her Master's Degree from San Francisco State University School of Drama.

Baggage From BaghDAD is presented by the W.H.A.M. Festival. Festival Public Relations: Trish Anderton, Goddard Riverside: tanderton@goddard.org, 929-249-1449; Public Relations for Baggage From BaghDAD: Paul Siebold, Off Off PR, paul@offoffpr.com.

About The W.H.A.M. Festival

Every March, during Women's History Month, Goddard Riverside's Community Arts program hosts an exciting month-long arts festival celebrating female artists and perspectives. The Women's History Artist Month festival - W.H.A.M. - showcases a wide range of local independent artists and helps raise vital funding for the Performing Arts Conservatory.

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