In honor of V-Day, the Johns Hopkins women present The Vagina Monologues, a performance based on interviews with over 200 women about their memories and experiences of sexuality. The Vagina Monologues is a celebration of female sexuality, based on the world-famous book by Eve Ensler, which recounts real women's stories of intimacy, vulnerability, and sexual self-discovery.
The book, from which the play has selected its monologues, is composed of a series of interviews with a diverse group of over 200 women about their vaginas: young and old, married and single; heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian; working class women, professional women, and sex workers; women of various races. Some of the monologues are verbatim, some are composites, some are the author's own creations.
The subjects, which all have to do with vaginas, include such topics as what a vagina looks like, what goes in and comes out of vaginas, menstruation and birth, and more playfully, "If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?" or "If your vagina could talk, what would it say, in two words?"
The Hopkins production is just one of many taking place at this time on campuses nationwide as a part of V-Day, a movement that works towards the prevention of violence against all woman and girls. As a non-profit organization, the group distributes funds to organizations worldwide to increase awareness of violence against women and to invigorate existing anti-violence organizations.
The Johns Hopkins women -- a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students and staff members from the university's Homewood, Peabody and East Baltimore campuses -- are dedicating all proceeds to The House of Ruth, a domestic violence shelter in Baltimore. Last year, V-Day JHU 2003 raised $3,000 for The House of Ruth and TurnAround Inc., another domestic violence shelter in Baltimore.
Performances are on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, Feb. 19th through the 22nd. The show will take place in the Arellano Theater in Levering at 8 p.m. the first three nights and 7 p.m. on the fourth night.
For more information on V-Day, which takes place on the days surrounding Valentine's Day, visit http://www.vday.org.
Tickets to The Vagina Monologues are selling out quickly. They cost $5 for students with ID, and can be purchased or reserved by e-mailing vdayjhu2@jhu.edu. For more information, e-mail Leah Miller at LRM@jhu.edu.
