Title: Who’s Your Baghdaddy, or How I Started the Iraq War
Venue and Format: Live/Zoom
Innovation: Who’s Your Baghdaddy was performed and streamed completely live every night for 5 nights. We took over a house, with each actor having their own room, camera and microphone. All of these feeds came to a central computer in the house and from there were streamed out across Australia.
Inspired by a true story, Who’s Your Baghdaddy, or How I Started the Iraq War is a satirical musical comedy with music and book by Marshall Paillet, lyrics and book by A.D. Penedo, based on an unproduced screenplay by J.T. Allen. Presented as a support group for people who started the Iraq War, this dark, boisterous and irreverent story follows a handful of mid-level spies whose vanity and office politics contributed to the worst intelligence blunder in modern history. The show was produced Off-Off Broadway at the Actor’s Temple in 2005 and Off-Broadway at the St Luke’s Theatre in 2017. The show is a reflection of how people in power, whether high, mid or low level in government, shape and form our world, and the importance of keeping them accountable in times of crisis. In our current times, this feels more meaningful than ever.
THEATRE/COMPANY: Curveball Creative
ARTISTS:
Creators: Marshal Paillet and A.D. Penedo
Director: Neil Gooding
Musical Director: Steven Kreamer
Choreographer: Leah Howard
Technical Director: Michael Goodyear
Actors: Doug Hansell, Matt Predny, Troy Sussman, Phillip Lowe, Laura Murphy, Adam Rennie, Katrina Retallick, and Blake Erickson
DATE OF PREMIERE: November 11, 2020
COUNTRY: Australia
LANGUAGE: English
CATEGORY: Online, Livestream, Zoom
REVIEWS:
Soloski, Alexis. “‘Who’s Your Baghdaddy’ Review: The Iraq War Set to Backpack Rap.” The New York Times. November 10, 2020.
Cunningham, Harriet. “Zooming in on musical war stories.” The Sydney Morning Herald. June 25, 2020.
Blake, Jason. “Who’s Your Baghdaddy?” Audrey Journal. June 25, 2020.
