Valerie David Returns to Stockholm Fringe With New Solo Play Baggage From BaghDAD This September

The 13th Annual Stockholm Fringe Festival (STOFF 2022) Presents Solo Show Baggage From BaghDAD: Becoming my Father's Daughter, One Middle Eastern Jewish Family's True Epic Journey to America.

Written and Performed by Renowned Solo Artist Valerie David; Directed by Maris Heller. Performances are on 15 and 17 September, 2022.

Award-winning performer/playwright Valerie David of New York City, who won the 2018 WOW award at the Gothenburg Fringe Festival and was nominated for the 2019 Spoken Word & Theatre Award in the Stockholm Fringe Festival for her internationally acclaimed inspirational comedy The Pink Hulk: One Woman's Journey to Find the Superhero Within kicking cancer to the curb 3 times, returns to Sweden! This time in both the Gothenburg and Stockholm Fringe Festivals with Baggage From BaghDAD: Becoming my father's daughter. This is Valerie's new solo play about the power of family and perseverance amid a harrowing past. Written and performed by Valerie David, STOFF 2022 is presenting Baggage From BaghDAD at The Pygmteatern, Vegagatan 17, 113 29 Stockholm, Thursday, 15 September @ 9:00 pm (21:00) and Saturday, 17 September @ 6:00 pm (18:00).

Mirroring the struggle of today?s Ukrainian refugees, and reflecting rising intolerance and growing racial, religious and discrimination worldwide, 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? pogrom. 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.

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 Valerie was selected as writer-in-residence. 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, and most recently was selected for The New York Step 1 Theatre Project 2022. As of 2022, this will be Valerie's 6th appearance with her solo shows in the Nordic Fringe Network.

Valerie David (playwright/performer) is thrilled to present 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, which forever changed their lives.

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 47 different play festivals worldwide since its 2016 debut, performed in over 25 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. Valerie raises money through The Pink Hulk performances for domestic and international cancer organizations. For more info on Valerie, visit https://pinkhulkplay.com/

Maris Heller (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. She also directs The Pink Hulk.

About the Stockholm Fringe Festival (13 Sept to 17 Sept):
STOFF 2022 is a 5-day multidisciplinary arts festival, acting as a "stage" for local and International Artists to present their innovative work ranging from performance to installation art and anything in between.

To post a comment, you must register and login.