‘Vagina Monologues’ to raise funds for women’s shelter

Started just 12 years ago with a performance of “The Vagina Monologues” on a New York stage, V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls, is now celebrated all over the world.

This Friday, IU will carry on the campaign to end violence with its own production of “The Vagina Monologues.”

Performances will be at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.

Organizers around campus have been selling T-shirts and chocolate vulva lollipops, along with tickets in anticipation of V-Day, and Wednesday the actresses of the show presented their own personal vagina monologues at Rachel’s Cafe alongside an a cappella performance by Ladies First.

Ten percent of all proceeds will go to the worldwide V-Day campaign, and remaining funds will be donated to Middle Way House, a center working against domestic violence, to specifically help the women in Bloomington.

Actress and sophomore Jordan Kay said no one should be intimidated to see the show.

“It’s for a good cause. It’s not bashing anyone. It’s not making fun of anyone. It’s for everyone,” Kay said. “When they see it, they’ll be able to feel what the monologues mean and they’ll take away certain aspects of the show and change their views on women, hopefully.”

Stephanie Seweryn, a junior also in the performance, said the show is “very candid and very direct” and hopes that will drive the point home for the audience.

“I think that the most important thing is it’s so direct that it might inspire people to investigate those things they are not clear on,” Seweryn said. “I think that’s what the main purpose of this show is: to bring people out of their comfort zone so that they are more actively pursuing answers to those things that they didn’t know before they saw it.”

Before anything else, the show and campaign are about helping women, said junior and director of the play Stephanie Moore.

“I think it might seem like it’s a quite in-your-face sort of way of talking about this, but the heart of the message and the heart of the show is just to tell about women’s stories and about the abuse that they’ve overcome,” Moore said. “We don’t want it to be considered depressing or too explicit. But it is just about general empowerment of women and how it’s important worldwide.”