ST. MARY'S CITY, Md. (Feb. 2, 2009)—The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler's
celebrated work about the sexual trials and triumphs of women around the world,
will be performed Thursday through Saturday, Feb. 12-14, at 9 p.m. in the Great Room of the Campus Center at St. Mary's College of Maryland (SMCM).
The performances celebrate V-Day, a global movement to end violence against
women.
Donations will benefit the local rape-crisis center, Walden Sierra. The Vagina Monologues is sponsored by Feminists United for Sexual Equality.
The Vagina Monologues has been performed in cities across America and at hundreds of college campuses. It has inspired a dynamic grassroots movement-V-Day-to stop violence against women. Ensler's Obie Award-winning work is based on interviews with more than 200 women about their memories and experiences of sexuality. "At first women were reluctant to talk," Ensler writes on Randomhouse.com. "They were a little shy. But once they got going, you couldn't stop them."
V-Day has become a global catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. It generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sexual slavery.
Through V-Day campaigns, local volunteers and college students produce annual benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues, A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer, and screenings of V-Day's documentary Until The Violence Stops to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within their own communities. Locally, Walden Sierra as well as this year's spotlight organization, Women and Girls from the Republic of the Congo, will benefit.
In 2008, more than 4,000 V-Day benefit events produced by volunteer activists took place in the United States and around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls.