The Vagina Monologues

Good morning, Internet, today is Saturday, March 23rd, and it turns out “sleeping in” now means getting up at 7:45am instead of 7am. Wee!

ANYway, tomorrow I am starting work on my second show in Wellington: The Vagina Monologues, a play with a substantial history. It was first performed by its author, Eve Ensler, in 1994, and since then, it has been performed by Ensler and by others all over the world, for the benefit of organizations that help women who have been the victims of violence.

The original monologues come from a collection of interviews that Ensler did with women, but after performances started, something magical (and undeniably theatrical) happened. Women who had been in her audience waited for her at stage doors to greet her, and then to share their own stories. Ensler heard stories all over the United States, and she began to feed these new stories back into the piece, so that, as more people became aware of the show and saw it, the show itself shifted and changed to incorporate these new stories.

(This, by the way, is one of the great purposes of theatre: to connect with other people, to connect people to their own experiences and stories, to strengthen ourselves and each other by sharing our stories.)

So, I would like to invite you to The Clitlective presents: The Vagina Monologues, 7PM April 19-21st at Nineteen Tory Street (the Concerned Citizens Collective). This production is to benefit the Women’s Refuge.