Baggage From BaghDAD: Becoming My Father's Daughter: Saturday, June 21, 2025 at 8 pm at the Episcopal Actors' Guild

Baggage From BaghDAD: Becoming My Father's Daughter, Written and Performed by Valerie David
Directed by Karen Carpenter, Sound and Projections Designer: Andy Evan Cohen, Technical Director: Eluit Ortiz, Videographer: Michael Lee Stever

Baggage From BaghDAD is a gripping award-winning solo show about an inspirational journey that mirrors today's growing intolerance of race and religion. Due to religious persecution during the 1941 “Farhud pogrom,” writer and performer Valerie David’s paternal Middle-Eastern Jewish family was forced to flee Iraq, and built a new home in America. It tells the story of how a father’s survival and perseverance shaped his daughter’s future and who she is today …how a father and a daughter learn to love and accept their differences. Baggage From BaghDAD is the journey of a family’s struggle to immigrate to a new land and transcend their harrowing past, so that love and the importance of family may triumph. 

8 PM – 9:30 PM EDT Show runs approx 70 minutes with a 25-minute audience talkback to follow. Mature content.
Location: Episcopal Actors' Guild, 1 East 29th Street, NY, NY 10016, between 5th and Madison

**With its universal themes, it’s not just a Jewish tale but a narrative that anyone can relate to with having to emigrate to another country, being forced to evacuate during wartime, suffering bullying, and the ramifications of having to adapt to a foreign culture that’s not so welcoming. This play finds humor and hope, even in the darkest of times—it has a universal message of hope and resilience.
Special thanks to Karen Carpenter, Andy Evan Cohen, Eluit Ortiz, Michael Lee Stever, Helene Galek, EAG,
Leslie G. Shapiro; and to LMCC!
***This project is made possible in part with funds from Creative Engagement, a regrant program(s) supported by the funding agencies: The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) in partnership with the City Council and the Howard Gilman Foundation: and administered by LMCC. Funding for LMCC’s Manhattan Arts Grants is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), and the Howard Gilman Foundation.