Baggage From BaghDAD: Becoming My Father's Daughter
Written and performed by Valerie David
Directed by Maris Heller
Sunday, Dec 11, 2022 @ 3pm
$15/ticket general admission
Check & cash at the door or prebuy with CC at:
https://sevendaystickets.com/events/baggage-from-baghdad-becoming-my-fathers-daughter-12-11-2022
For more information contact: grangehallcc@gmail.com or 802-244-4168

Mirroring the struggle of today's Ukrainian refugees and reflecting rising racial and religious discrimination worldwide, Baggage From BaghDAD is one Middle Eastern Jewish family's true inspirational journey of being forced to flee from religious persecution during the 1941 "Farhud" pogrom in Baghdad. It is the story of playwright and performer Ms. David's father and his family's struggle to transcend their harrowing past and 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. Some of the themes of this new solo show include generational trauma, prejudice, discrimination, bullying, and the love and loss of family.

MOXIE Productions welcomes Valerie David as the 2022 GHCC Artist-In-Residence at the Grange Hall Cultural Center, to explore and expand her solo show, Baggage From BaghDAD: Becoming My Father's Daughter, a story chronicling her father's escape from Baghdad as an 8 year old refugee with his family and their immigration to America to begin a new life. Slated to come to Vermont to attend her residency with MOXIE Productions and GHCC in June of 2020, she is now accepting her award in 2022. Never one to be deterred by any obstacle, Ms. David committed herself to writing during the pandemic shutdown and safely presented her work in progress to the public in the small pockets of relief from the Covid shutdowns in New York City. In September of this year she was able to travel and win top theater honors from her production at the Stockholm Fringe Festival, among other prestigious notoriety awarded to her in NYC for staged readings of earlier drafts as she persevered toward her goal.

Many may remember Ms. David's performance of her previous award-winning solo show at the Grange Hall Cultural Center in its One & Only Series, celebrating solo performance, titled The Pink Hulk: One Woman's Journey to Find the Superhero Within, in which she shared her inspiring three-time cancer survivor story with Vermont audiences in February of 2019. Her "Never Give Up" attitude seen in The Pink Hulk is part of Ms. David's personal resilience and charm, and we will see in this next show just where that originates from.

Contact grangehallcc@gmail.com or www.grangehallcc.com with any questions or to receive submission forms and guidelines for the 2023 MOXIE Production/GHCC Artist-In-Residence program. All forms of performance are welcome to apply.

--
Monica Callan

CREATE, CONNECT, & CELEBRATE
Grange Hall Cultural Center
www.grangehallcc.com
317 Howard Avenue, PO Box 264,
Waterbury Center, Vermont 05677

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