We recently connected with Valerie David and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Valerie, thanks for joining us today. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your career and how did you resolve those issues?
I was honored to perform my new solo show that I wrote titled Baggage From BaghDAD: Becoming My Father’s Daughter in its first fully realized production at the Stockholm Fringe Festival in September 2022. I had no idea the impact it would have on me. This is the true story of my Middle Eastern Jewish family’s inspirational journey of being forced to flee from religious persecution during the 1941 “Farhud” pogrom in Baghdad and how they began a new life in America. The play is an homage to my dad and my courageous family.
My father, David David (yes, that’s his real name!), passed away in March 2022, just six months before I performed in this Fringe. I arrived in Stockholm a few days early to rehearse. I could not get through rehearsing it without breaking into tears, and a huge depression came over me. I did not think I could perform. As I kept rehearsing, I felt the worst pain I had ever experienced—reliving my dad’s death over and over again. I was too ashamed to tell my family, especially my mom, who was so excited for me to perform the play. I started to formulate what I was going to tell the heads of the Stockholm Fringe Festival—the reasons I was not able to do Baggage From BaghDAD, and that I was planning to just pack up and fly home to New York. But I had two angels that lifted me up: my best friend from college, Leslie, who generously offered to help me go over my lines via FaceTime, and my actor friend Mark from my high school days in Virginia Beach. Leslie kept telling me, “Valerie, you can do this. You’ve got this!” I reached out to Mark and told him, “I’m having a really hard time. I can’t stop crying every time I rehearse the play. Any advice?” His response: “Keep breathing. The audience comes for you and your play. You give them your heart and soul so they remember what it is to be human. Your play honors your loved ones, and your grief gives the work meaning and depth. Let it set the work on fire.”
So I kept breathing. I continued listening to the words of Leslie and Mark. For those festival performances, I poured my heart and soul into them. At the closing night awards party, the greatest honor of my entire life occurred. Baggage From BaghDAD won the Best Spoken Word & Theatre Award at the Stockholm Fringe. I was truly grateful. This was an award for my dad in heaven and my mom and my family. It taught me that the most painful moments of your life can also become the most glorious and rewarding. And to have faith in yourself with loving family and friends surrounding you—with that, there is nothing you can’t achieve.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My proudest achievement is becoming The Pink Hulk and “hulking out” to help others. People don’t call me Valerie anymore; they greet me as “Hi, Pink Hulk” and I am so grateful for that. So, what does that mean, exactly?
I wrote my award-winning The Pink Hulk: One Woman’s Journey to Find the Superhero Within after “hulking out” on cancer following two diagnoses: first, Stage III Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 1999 and then breast cancer in 2014/2015. Then, in September 2018, I was re-diagnosed with breast cancer—this time Stage IV metastatic. As of April 2019, through advancements in oral medications, I have had no evidence of disease.
Through my story, I want to give people hope that one can beat the odds. My show is a celebration of living life on your own terms—a true testament to never give up! And it’s not just about cancer—it’s about fighting back when facing ANY adversity in life, which is why it has been resonating with audiences worldwide. What makes it stand out is its humor. It is a funny, uplifting story, not a “why me” or a “poor me” tale.
It has been such an honor to have The Pink Hulk be accepted into more than 50 theater festivals since its 2016 debut, performed domestically and globally in more than 25 cities and counting. I’m very grateful for what I have accomplished: I go beyond just performing The Pink Hulk. The show’s content helps to raise awareness, educate, and inspire communities, and its outreach, community engagement activities, post-show talkbacks, and patient advocacy initiatives truly make a difference. Through performances, I also raise money for domestic and international cancer organizations. With plenty of heartwarming and laugh-out-loud moments, The Pink Hulk has been a recipient of several awards, including the WOW Award in Sweden’s Gothenburg Fringe Festival. This was the first time I had taken the play overseas to a country where English is not the primary language. It showed that The Pink Hulk message of empowerment is uniquely universal.
I am also grateful for its impactful way of helping cancer patients and survivors, as well as caregivers. At the end of the show, I wear a bright pink cape. After one performance, a woman from the audience going through treatment asked if she could put it on. When I helped wrap the cape around her, she immediately began to fly around the theater to become a Pink Hulk herself. A gentleman whose wife had gone through breast cancer confided in me that seeing my show helped him to better understand what his wife was going through. After a performance at Rhode Island College’s Nursing Department, the staff told me that they now have a better understanding of what a cancer patient actually goes through and felt that they will become better nurses because of it. At a talkback recently, a cancer survivor told me that she was always too timid to speak of her own cancer experience, but now wants to pursue telling her story to become a patient advocate for others. I never know whose lives I might touch, even from afar. A high school friend who did not want to talk about her cancer treatment reached out to me after she had finished cancer treatment to tell me, “I was very private about my cancer battle, but your Pink Hulk story got me through my cancer journey, and I want to thank you.”
To learn more about The Pink Hulk, visit https://pinkhulkplay.com/.
Additional info:
The Pink Hulk Mission
Valerie turned her adversity into art with The Pink Hulk, which inspires audiences, uplifting them with her motivational, empowering story to battle cancer, live life on her own terms, and crush the obstacles in her path. Her solo play is told with heartfelt honesty and lots of humor. Through performances, theater is utilized as a thought-provoking vehicle to empower audiences.
Some of the post-performance talkback topics I focus on:
· How to be your own best advocate
· Self-care and medical advancements
· Coping mechanisms
· How-to’s for alleviating the financial strain of treatment and beyond
· How to approach doctors to discuss sensitive topics
· Helpful tips and advice on meeting with your doctor, on getting second opinions, and on finding the best care for yourself.
Here are a few of the Master Classes I offer, in addition to performing:
· Improv workshop with improv exercises/group games; no experience necessary
· Storytelling: How to begin writing your own memoir with tailored writing exercises · What you need to begin writing a one-person show, including a mission statement on how to utilize art to make a change and/or advocate for a cause
· How the festival circuit can benefit your show’s growth and marketing potential: why it is crucial to your piece’s development
· Lessons and tools of going from page to stage and incorporating community engagement activities
· How to self-produce, lead a project and put a creative team together
The Pink Hulk PROMO VIDEO
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
The story that reflects my resilience was cycling in the annual New York City five-borough, 40-mile bike tour. In 2015, I signed up for the bike marathon, knowing I would not likely complete it. Two months prior, I had finished eight months of harrowing breast cancer treatment consisting of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. I was exhausted, both emotionally and physically. My best friend from college, Wendy, was to ride with me. The night before, I emailed her to let her know I am going to try my best and though I have trained the best I could, I will be dropping out somewhere at Mile 10, and Wendy should continue without me. I knew 40 miles was way too much for me to successfully achieve. I will never forget what Wendy said to me the night before when we spoke: “Valerie, don’t let the fear of not making it to the finish line stop you from going to the start line. We’ll just take it a mile at a time.”
We were at the start line together at 8:30 am the day of the marathon. My heart was pounding. I was so nervous to embark on this ride, still reeling from cancer treatment. The bull horn sounded for it to begin. I took a deep breath and started to peddle. Wendy stayed by my side. We hit Mile 10, and I was OK to keep going. Though I was very surprised, I continued to peddle. Then we hit Mile 15, where it is the last chance to peel off and exit the bike tour. Suddenly, I thought to myself, “I don’t want to take that exit. I want to go on.” Then we hit Mile 20, and I began to tear up—I was halfway to the finish line. I thought, “Maybe I can do this—maybe I can finish.” My heart began to race harder as I passed the 30-mile marker. Could this really be happening? And then Wendy and I hit the Verrazano Bridge with only a couple of miles to go. Pumping my legs the hardest I ever had up one of the steepest inclines, I was determined not to stop. I kept screaming out loud, “Go, go, go, Valerie! Keep going!” with Wendy, who never stopped encouraging me. And then I hit the midpoint, and as we descended down the last half of the bridge, I could see the finish line. I whizzed past other cyclists, the wind blowing in my face, peddling even faster. I could feel more tears well up, but they were tears of sheer joy. I crossed that finish line yelling at the top of my lungs, “I just finished breast cancer treatment two months ago!” People on the sidelines started cheering and yelling back, “Good for you! Congratulations!”
It was one of the most triumphant moments. It was a finish line I crossed not just literally, but a finish line I crossed in my life to become a survivor! I did it. It is a moment I will always treasure in my “cycle of life.”
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
A big thing I had to unlearn was trying to manufacture who I thought I should be and be influenced by people’s opinions of me. I was always too worried about what they thought, which prevented me from being my most authentic self. I had to learn to just be me—to be true to myself! Like the song from Marlo Thomas and Friend’s album, “Free to Be…You and Me,” this lyric struck a chord: “In this land, every girl grows to be her own woman.” I began to realize I just needed to be my own person. Especially when it came to being an actor and my acting work: Just tell the truth of your story. Don’t try to force the acting, especially when it’s a comedic scene.
I was always the jokester in the family, the class clown at school. Always trying to make everyone laugh. I was the heavy kid growing up, so to compensate for my insecurities, I tried to be the “funny” one. This inevitably seeped into adulthood, when I attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) in Manhattan, which is what brought me to move to New York—to become an actor. My first-year teacher, Peter Jensen, had quite a time with me. I would do crazy things to make the class laugh, like taping a strip of toilet paper to my shoe during a class scene that completely did not warrant it. Or I would wear a dress inside out with the seams protruding to get a chuckle from my classmates. He would always say, “Valerie, you are enough. You don’t need to do this. Play the truth.” When it came time for our “exam” plays at the end of the first year, which determined if you are asked back for a second year, we all knew AADA would only ask back fewer than half of the first-year students. It was a very stressful time.
The exam play I was to perform in was John Guare’s House of Blue Leaves in the role of Bunny. This was a sublime comedic part, but could I pull it off, plus having to wear a tight-fitting outfit, short crop top and bell bottom pants, when I always wore baggy clothes, ashamed of my figure? Would I be selected to return and graduate? I finally listened—play the truth of the character. Don’t try to be funny. Be the storyteller and tell Bunny’s story in my own way. Peter directed this exam play and told me how proud he was of what I had performed onstage. Well, I received that letter in the mail that I was chosen to return for the second year, and I have been that storyteller ever since. I am happy with the woman I have grown into, inside and out!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://pinkhulkplay.com/
- Instagram: @pinkhulkplay
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pinkhulkplay/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valeriedavid/
- Twitter: @pinkhulkplay
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXRTfJ7EdCBEjlhsZw3bI-w
- Other:The Pink Hulk PROMO VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcZd8F5i8ZQThe Pink Hulk SCENES VIDEO
https://youtu.be/c0VNG76SvfsBaggage From BaghDAD PROMO TRAILER
Image Credits
David Perlman, Emily Hewitt, Rebecca Kalant, Kevin Brown Jr, Naomi Carter, and Lauren Adler