WEATHERSFIELD, Vt. — World Under Wonder will be hosting auditions for an upcoming production of Eve Ensler’s master work of empowerment, “The Vagina Monologues” to be presented as a V-Day benefit event in February. The auditions will be held at the World Under Wonder Playhouse in the old Weathersfield Grange Hall that the group is renovating at 5755 Rt. 5 in Weathersfield on Saturday, Jan. 12, from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Auditions are open to all who identify as women including cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence. No acting experience is required. At the audition, you’ll be asked to do a cold reading of a monologue. Anyone who is interested, but unable to attend the audition is encouraged to contact the theater. The production will be directed by Sam Maskell, who directed “The Vagina Monologues” in 2006 for a V-Day event in Bellows Falls, Vermont. The performance is scheduled for Feb. 23, 7 p.m. at the World Under Wonder Playhouse, proceeds from this event will benefit the Women’s Freedom Center and Planned Parenthood.
World Under Wonder is also seeking submissions for three new, local monologues. Every year a special edition of “The Vagina Monologues” script is released for V-Day events. Typically, the scripts feature a Spotlight monologue. This year, instead of a Spotlight monologue, we are invited to amplify the often unheard and excluded voices of survivors, activists, and groups in our communities by creating three community-written testimonies to be performed at the end of the play. Each monologue should be about 3 minutes in length and meet one of the three guidelines specified by V-Day. One of the new monologues must showcase a formerly incarcerated or detained woman; an invitation to speak to an audience about their experiences and how they connect to the issue of violence against women and girls. Additionally, this year, all V-Day productions will be donating 10 percent of their proceeds to Spotlight on Women in Prison, Detention Centers, and Formerly Incarcerated Women. The other two monologues are from the point of view of local leaders or activists who are doing the crucial, daily work of ending violence in our community to present a “What and why my vagina is rising” monologue. An opportunity to share with the audience what they are working to change and how the local community can support them.
Twenty years ago, Eve Ensler’s play “The Vagina Monologues” gave birth to V–Day, a global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls. Since 1998, “The Vagina Monologues” and other works have been performed across the world by local V-Day activists, raising over $100 million dollars for grassroots anti-violence groups, rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, and safe houses in places like Kenya and Afghanistan. In 2013, V-Day founded One Billion Rising, the largest mass action to demand an end to violence against women in history. V-Day and One Billion Rising are a crucial part of the global fight to stop gender-based violence through attacking the silence — public and private — that allows violence against women to continue.
Maskell says, “When women take the stage, incredible things happen, as their issues are voiced and confronted for all to see and hear.”
For more information, email the theater at [email protected] or go online to worldunderwonder.webs.com.
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