The Center at West Park Presents
baggage from baghdad:
becoming my father’s daughter
Presented as part of the CWP Evolution Festival
Saturday, October 3, 2026 @ 8:30 PM
Manhattan Movement & Arts Center
248 W. 60th Street, New York, NY 10023
An inspiring, empowering story of overcoming the challenges of displacement, prejudice, and cultural assimilation through the power and love of family.
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Baggage From BaghDAD: Becoming My Father’s Daughter, written and performed by award-winning actress Valerie David, is a gripping, award-winning solo show that mirrors today's growing intolerance of race and religion. Due to religious persecution during the 1941 “Farhud” pogrom that took place in Baghdad, Valerie’s paternal Middle Eastern Jewish family was forced to flee Iraq and build a new home in America. This play highlights her family’s struggle to immigrate to a new land and transcend their harrowing past, so that love and the importance of family triumph. It’s not just a Jewish story, but a narrative that anyone can relate to, with having to immigrate 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. Baggage From BaghDAD finds humor and hope, even in the darkest of times. It recounts how this painful legacy shaped Valerie’s own life and her evolving relationship with her father, uncovering a story of survival, identity, and ultimately, reconciliation. Her poignant storytelling offers both historical education and emotional resonance. Through vivid characters, humor, and heart, she invites audiences to examine today’s refugee crises, rising prejudice, and the intergenerational impact of war and displacement. Her family's personal narrative mirrors broader global issues, from the struggles of Ukrainian and Gaza refugees, the Gaza/Israel conflict, and the current resurgence of Anti-Semitism and religious discrimination worldwide. Directed by award-winning director Karen Carpenter with Sound and Projections by award-winning designer Andy Evan Cohen. For more information, visit https://pinkhulkplay.com/baggage-from-baghdad-solo-show/
Cast & Creative Team
Writer/Performer: Valerie David
Director: Karen Carpenter
Sound & Projection Designer: Andy Evan Cohen
About the Lead Artist
Award-winning playwright/actress Valerie David performs Baggage From BaghDAD both domestically and internationally to create awareness of The Farhud, an essential part of history that has largely been forgotten. She also wrote and currently performs The Pink Hulk: One Woman’s Journey to Find the Superhero Within. A 27-year cancer survivor, her autobiographical comedic drama expresses the empowerment she felt finding humor, hope, and superhero inner strength going through four bouts of cancer. Valerie is a published writer, improv instructor, and received the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award: Resilience in Action from the Biden administration for her patient advocacy work. Visit https://pinkhulkplay.com/.
About the Director
Karen Carpenter is best known for directing the premiere of Delia and Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore, the Broadway World Audience Favorite, which won the Drama Desk and has played worldwide. As Artistic Director of the Inge Festival, Karen founded an annual New Play Lab – her legacy there has presented new works by over 100 playwrights to date. Her work with writers is at the fore of everything she makes. She is keenly invested in directing works with societal impact: for World Refugee Day, Joanna Pickering’s Lara’s Journey, which streamed live to over a million displaced Ukrainians; the premiere of Valerie David’s Baggage from BaghDAD: Becoming My Father's Daughter, presented by invitation at Society for Ethical Culture; and upcoming: Catherine Filloux’s White Savior, a call to action against child separation in deportation for the Center at West Park. kcdirector.com
About the Sound & Projection Designer
Andy Evan Cohen is an NYC-based composer and sound/media designer. Recent sound design credits include The Zionists (Miami New Drama; Barrington Stage); Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole A Song; The Lights Are On (Henry Hewes Award Nomination for Sound Design); (A)Loft Modulation (Audelco Awards Nomination for Sound Design). Other credits include That Math Show (Video Design, Theatre555); Pied a Terre (Sound/Lighting/Video Design off-Broadway); and The Greatest Hits Down Route 66 (Music Director for New Light Theater Project, Drama Desk Nomination for Orchestrations). Andy is excited to work with Valerie again on Baggage from BaghDAD. Andy teaches courses in sound design, stage management, and technical theater at CUNY BMCC and Kingsborough. www.rolypolyproductions.com