Award-Winning PINK HULK One-Woman Show Comes to the Pittsburgh Fringe Play Festival

Actor and playwright Valerie David performs her inspiring, comical one-woman show about becoming a two-time cancer survivor while embarking on a hijinks-filled quest for love and new meaning in her life.

Award-winning The Pink Hulk: One Woman's Journey to Find the Superhero Within, written and starring professional actor and playwright Valerie David, will be performed on March 31, April 1 and April 2 in the Pittsburgh Fringe Play Festival. Tickets are available at http://www.pittsburghfringe.org/the-pink-hulk.html.

What's the first thing Valerie does when she's diagnosed with cancer for a second time in her life? She tries to find love. Valerie is now battling breast cancer beating Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma 15 years earlier. Afraid she might lose "the girls," Valerie decides to takes them out for one last hurrah. And does she succeed in her quest for love? Come see The Pink Hulk to find out! With unflinching bravery, Valerie strives to empower herself and conquer her insecurities of lymphoma and breast cancer's impact on her womanhood. This sexy, adventurous solo show follows the triumphant journey of one woman seeking her own "hulk-like" strength to find her superhero within-a true and inspiring story!

David, who has been cancer-free since 2015, wrote the autobiographical The Pink Hulk to express the empowerment she felt being able to find humor and superhero inner strength going through two bouts of cancer. She raises money through The Pink Hulk performances for domestic and international cancer organizations.

"I hope this play inspires anyone facing any sort of adversity in their life-not just cancer. I want people to know hope and humor exist in even the worst of circumstances," David says. "I have had many cancer patients and survivors in the audience, and I have been so honored and humbled when they have come up to me after a performance to tell me how much they related to my show. One cancer survivor said, 'Your show nailed exactly everything I felt when I was going through my own treatment.' " David is thrilled to bring The Pink Hulk to the Pittsburgh Fringe, as her mother, Rhoda Weitsman David, is a 1957 graduate of Chatham University.

At its world premiere in the Planet Connections Festivity Theatre Festival in New York City this past summer, The Pink Hulk was nominated for Best Performance of a Solo Show, Best Overall Production of a Solo Show, and won Best Director of a Solo Show. It was also awarded a Congeniality Award and Planet Activist Award, raising funds and awareness for Mary's Place by the Sea, a nonprofit cancer organization in Ocean Grove, NJ. David also received the Queen's Medal for Valour Award from the 2017 SaraSolo Festival in Sarasota, Florida, which is presented to an exceptional performer who brings bravery, grace, and humor to extraordinary circumstances.

Last fall, David performed The Pink Hulk in New York City, Providence, Rhode Island, and in Baltimore's Charm City Fringe Festival. Spring performances include Providence, Orlando and Cincinnati.

BIOGRAPHIES:

VALERIE DAVID (Writer and Performer) is an actor and playwright. A graduate of James Madison University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 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, which premiered at a November 2015 NYC Film Festival, and Bridges and Tunnels. Memberships include the League of Professional Theatre Women, AEA and SAG-AFTRA. She also performs improv throughout New York City with improv groups Faceplant, Cronuts and Cherub. Valerie played the role of Maxine in Abraham's Daughters by Emma Goldman-Sherman and directed by Lorca Peress in the Lady Liberty Festival on 9/11 and this winter at the Bernie Wohl Center and Intersections International. She wrote and starred in the one-woman musical Bring On a Man!; and both cowrote and starred in the two-person show Wanted: A Few Good Men and Two-mur Humor: He's Malignant; She's Benign.

Padraic Lillis (Director) is the founding Artistic Director of The Farm Theater. He was awarded Best Direction of a Solo Show for Valerie's The Pink Hulk solo show at Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. Padraic has also been awarded the NY IT Award for Outstanding Director for Lindsay Joy's Rise and Fall of a Teenage Cyberqueen, Overall Excellence Award from NY International Fringe Festival for Lee Kaplan's Bully, Best Overall Production of a Solo Show and Planet Advocate Award for his solo show addressing suicide awareness Hope You Get To Eleven or What are we going to do about Sally?, and is a member of the Indie Theater Hall of Fame. He is a published playwright with Dramatist Play Services and Indie Theater Now. His film Hand Over Hand, which he wrote and directed, was awarded Best Short Film at the Milan International Film Festival. He is a member of the LAByrinth Theater Company and a lifelong Yankee fan.

More info: http://pinkhulkplay.com

Photo courtesy of Lauren Adler