Speaking your mind can begin with your body - or your vagina, as one playwright has proved. With the three upcoming performances of Eve Ensler's play, "The Vagina Monologues," AU women will have the chance to say it all.
On Feb. 14, AU Choice USA, a chapter of the national pro-choice organization, along with the V-Day College Initiative Project, will sponsor three showings of the hit play on campus. AU will join over 200 other colleges and universities across the nation, including George Washington, George Mason and Howard in celebrating V-Day, a fundraising event for organizations working to stop violence and promote human rights.
The V-Day project was established by Eve Ensler and the producers of the "Vagina Monologues" in 1999, and is now working in partnership with Planned Parenthood, Ilissa Gould, an organizer of the V-Day event, said. "Never before will the word vagina have been said so many times on campus," Gould, a CAS sophomore, said. "These performances will raise issues and ask questions."
Ensler's script uses graphic language in her seventeen monologues to open up discussion about a topic that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Ensler's variety of themes range from sexual abuse during childhood, female genital mutilation, lesbianism, slang terms for genitalia, and childbirth to create an effect that is both humorous and haunting.
This is the first V-Day celebration at AU, and Gould hopes it will create a stronger community of women on campus.
"We have AU NOW (a chapter of the National Organization for Women) and some individual groups," Gould said. "Hopefully this will raise participation and involvement." The coordinators of "Vagina Monologues" are looking for a cast of ten, with diverse backgrounds and opinions. "Women who act in it have to be very very comfortable speaking in explicit terms about vaginas," Gould said.
Materials will be provided at the auditions which will take place in the Hughes formal lounge on Monday, Jan. 22 from 8 p.m. to 11p.m, Tuesday, Jan. 23 from 8 p.m. to 11p.m, and Wednesday, Jan. 24 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The performances will take place on Feb. 14, 16 and 17.
