The Vagina Monologues

This entry will again refer to two aspects of my participation in the same activity, denoted by (1) and (2).

The Vagina Monologues is a theater production that is put on at my school every year during Women's Week. The whole point of the piece is to open up dialogue about feminism and women's issues by allowing women to become more comfortable about talking about their own personal experiences as women.

I both performed (1) and organized (2) the performances of The Vagina Monologues. Before the production, I had heard about the Monologues but I had never seen or read any of them. However, I quickly became involved in the pieces and they had a profound impact on me. I had never had such an open forum to discuss women's issues in and I also felt such a connection with my fellow actresses.

Performing the pieces (1) was an interesting experience. I had some prior theater experience but I was not nor had ever been a theater student and I had never experienced something as intimate as the production of The Vagina Monologues is. The audience is quite small, around 100 people. The monologues are all about very sensitive issues; some are quite sexual, others are about molestation and rape, and others are more light-hearted discussion about vaginas in general. I was petrified of getting up in front of a group of my peers and discussing vaginas. Before the productions, I could probably count how many times I had ever said the word "vagina" in my life on two hands! To perform the pieces, I really had to try to get into the heads of the women who actually spoke the monologues. I had to open myself up and really dig deep, really think about what being a woman means to me. The other actressess helped me with this and our discussions became very casual and carried over into all parts of my life.

Organizing the production (2) was similar to performing in some ways, like an extension of performing. I used what I had learned about the piece as a performer to improve the production when I organized it. I had help from 3 other girls and we all worked equally together to put on the production. My comfort with the topics (gained from my experience as a performer) was invaluable in helping the other girls who were experiencing the piece for the first time. We had a grueling schedule of practices and did not always agree about how pieces should be acted or how the production should look but we had to work out our issues in order to put together a cohesive whole on opening night. The result was more than worth it and I was so proud of everyone who participated because I truly felt that we had accomplished something, that we had gained something, and that we had shared something with all of the audience members.

Being in theater is interesting because it forces you to become another person, to view the world through a different set of eyes. Acting involves knowledge, empathy, and an open mind. These are attributes that will be valuable for the rest of my life. The Vagina Monologues (2) taught me how to organize, how to schedule, how to budget my time, how to do all the dirty, behind-the-scenes, unglamourous work in order to make something work. It also taught me (1) a lot about myself as a woman and what kind of issues are important to me. It gave me a forum of discussion, a community of women, and for that, I am quite grateful.