FEATURE

Rebecca Klco is directing a play in which women talk about the pleasures and pains that come with having a vagina.

The Vagina Monologues, an award-winning play by Eve Ensler, is coming to FAU’s Jupiter campus on March 27 at 7 p.m. It was designed to help women feel a greater sense of pride in themselves and their bodies, while educating both sexes about the vagina and what it means to have one.

“Our Vagina Team has been working very hard for some months to put this event together,” said Klco, the director. “I am very happy with the courageous and dedicated women who are going to perform the show.”

Since 2003, there have been annual performances of The Vagina Monologues at FAU’s Jupiter campus, except in 2008, when it was performed at Les Bean Coffee, a café in Lake Worth. This year, the Feminist Student Union at the Jupiter campus is producing it.
A nonprofit charity called V-Day was created in 1998 and has raised more than $50 million to help end violence against women. It raises awareness and money through benefit productions such as The Vagina Monologues.

V-Day’s main purpose is to stop violence against women and girls.

“I very much hope our audience will come away from the show knowing more about the women we are raising money to help,” said Klco. “Our spotlight this year is women in the Democratic Republic of [the] Congo,” she said.

She explained that conditions for women there are some of the worst in the world, and the stories of violence and rape from there are horrific.

“The worst part is that most people in the rest of the world have no clue what is going on there,” said Klco. “We hope to change that.”

Donations from the performance will be shared with Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse and a local women’s shelter, and will help rebuild the V-Day Women’s Safe House in Haiti.

Bianca Ross, a recent philosophy graduate from the University of Central Florida, is doing the production for the first time.

“Not only is this production important because it spreads awareness for women’s issues, but it is a charitable cause that assists those who suffer at the hands of injustice,” said Ross.

The show emphasizes how the vagina influences all our lives. It is a forum where women can get up and talk about something that is a part of them, but is hardly ever seen and is deemed improper to talk about.

“Women are brutally suffering around the world right now, and that includes here at home,” said Ross. “The show does a brilliant, beautiful, often funny and heartbreaking job of shedding light on these issues. It would be great if people continued contemplating long after they leave the auditorium.”

The Vagina Monologues is taking back the roles society has projected on women and celebrating their individuality.

“Is it an entertaining, laugh-out-loud, hilarious play? Yes,” said Ross. “But it is much, much more than that. It is a production that will change people’s lives.”

Who: FAU Jupiter’s Feminist Student Union

What: V-Day FAU Jupiter 2010, a benefit production of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. All funds raised will be contributed to the following beneficiaries: the V-Day Haiti Sorority Safe House, City of Joy (a women’s shelter located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and the Delray Beach chapter of Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse.

Where & When: Saturday, March 27, at 7 p.m. at the FAU Jupiter campus auditorium, Room AD 119, and Sunday, March 28, at 2 p.m. at the Maltz Auditorium of the Lifelong Learning Society, followed by refreshments and conversation in Room 151, adjacent to the Maltz Center.

Admission: $10; however, donations are accepted and encouraged. FAU students with FAU ID present will receive free admission.  Pre-performance tickets are purchasable online at www.vdayjupiter.co.nr, or you can call Sara Klco at (561) 251-9062 to reserve tickets.

Contact: For more information, check out their Web site at www.vdayjupiter.co.nr or call Rebecca Klco at (561) 715-9162.

[Source: www.tcpalm.com/events/2010/mar/27/2589]