Laura Lucas

On Feb. 13 and 14 at 7 p.m., the Vagina Monologues will be performed in Doner Auditorium. Playwright Eve Ensler wrote the script in 1996, and at first, performed it alone. That year she won the Obie Award for Best New Play. Since then, there have been numerous monologues added. There have also been many women who have performed this play including Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg and Glenn Close.

According to vday.org, after being confronted with women’s stories night after night after performing, Ensler realized that “nothing was more important than stopping violence toward women.” In 1998, she founded V-Day, a nonprofit movement dedicated to ending violence against women around the world.

This year, a group of 19 women have decided to perform the monologues. Krysta Hibbard, a senior agricultural business major, said she transferred here from Oregon where they performed the monologues every year. She met with the women’s studies advisor and tried to get the play done here. Since it was done in 2002 by the theater department, she was asked not to do the play last year.

This year Greek Life is sponsoring the project.

“All the money raised goes to the Brookings Abuse Shelter,” said Hibbard.

According to Ashley Wells, a freshman psychology major, the monologues were, more or less, chosen for each woman. The women got the script, chose their top three, then auditioned and were given a piece.

Katie Fritz, a junior graphic design major, said, “I wanted to do this because I used to do theater. I was always interested in the monologues.”

At the end of the show, the ultimate goal is to get the bigger message. Hibbard said, “You don’t have to agree with what is being said. This play causes you to think.”

According to Hibbard, the goal of the show is the awareness of domestic abuse and violence toward women and that these things are real.

Tickets for the show are $4 for students and $7 for the general public. Audiences are warned that the show contains very strong language and adult content; therefore, it is for mature audiences only.

Ensler said to randomhouse.com, “I am not sure why I was chosen. I didn’t, for example, have girlhood fantasies about becoming ‘vagina lady’ (which I am often called, sometimes loudly across a crowded shoe store). I could not have imagined that I would one day be talking about vaginas on talk shows in places like Athens, Greece, chanting the word vagina with four thousand women in Baltimore? These things were not in my plans.”

#1.882865:3955218101.JPG:IMG_0390.JPG:Krysta Hibbard helps participants practice their monologues in the State Room in The Union.: