V-Day Coming to New Orleans April 12

What started as an obscure presentation at the Cornelia Street Café in downtown New York a decade ago has evolved into an international phenomenon. Five years later -- on Feb. 10, 2001 – it debuted in New York’s Madison Square Garden with an all star lineup of prominent women, featuring Calista Flockhart, Jane Fonda, Melissa Ethridge, Oprah Winfrey and a host of others.

As intended, New York writer Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues resonated with the public and drew widespread global attention to the problem of violence against women. The Monologues and the impact they’ve had resulted in the creation of “V-Day,” a nonprofit grass roots movement dedicated to ending violence against women around the world.

On April 11 and 12, V-Day comes to New Orleans with presentations of The Vagina Monologues and other related events being held in the Louisiana Superdome and adjacent New Orleans Arena. Billed as “V To the Tenth: V-Day's Tenth Anniversary,” this year’s event will again feature an all-star cast of female celebrities, including Salma Hayek, Oprah Winfrey, Jane Fonda, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Hudson, Glenn Close, Julia Stiles, Ali Larter, Sally Field, Marisa Tomei, Calpernia Addams, Rosario Dawson, Kerry Washington, and musicians Common, Eve, and Charmaine Neville.

The weekend’s highlight is the Saturday evening, April 12, staging of international performances of The Vagina Monologues, with musical guests and V-Day activists from across the globe. These activists come from Kenya, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, Democratic Republic of Congo and Eastern Europe, and include men standing up for women. The evening will inspire, entertain, celebrate, educate and raise much-needed attention and funds for groups working to end violence against women and girls around the world, and in New Orleans and the Gulf South.

Ensler, of course, will be present throughout the event. The Vagina Monologues have made her a household name on the contemporary scene and they won an Obie (Off-Broadway) Award. She has been described as “a force of nature, a woman alive with passion and conviction.” Award-winning actress Glenn Close said, “You don't just hook up with Eve, you become part of her crusade. There's a core of us who are Eve's army." Time magazine wrote, "Eve Ensler can soar to Rabelesian heights or move us with quiet compassion. She may not save the world, but what other playwrights even think of trying." The Vagina Monologues have been described as “the bible for a new generation of women.”

Ensler described the initial reaction to her production as follows: "As I traveled with the piece to city after city, country after country, hundreds of women waited after the show to talk to me about their lives. The play had somehow freed up their memories, pain, and desire. Night after night I heard the same stories -- women being raped as teenagers, in college, as little girls, as elderly women; women who had finally escaped being beaten to death by their husbands; women who were terrified to leave; women who were taken sexually, before they were even conscious of sex, by their stepfathers, brothers, cousins, uncles, mothers and fathers.... Slowly it dawned on me that nothing was more important than stopping violence toward women."

This realization led in 1997 to the founding of V-Day, a nonprofit grass roots movement dedicated to ending violence against women around the world. Within its first three years, V-Day had spread to over 300 colleges, where students and faculty members performed The Vagina Monologues. By 2008 it had played in about 1,500 venues totaling roughly 4,000 performances. Over the past decade V-Day has raised millions of dollars, which it has given to organizations fighting for the rights of women in Afghanistan, efforts to stop genital mutilation in Kenya, and rape crisis centers in Bosnia, Croatia, and Chechnya, as well as hundreds of domestic programs to combat rape and abuse. Thanks to V-Day, The Vagina Monologues has been taken to 20 countries, including China, South Africa, The Philippines, Brazil and Turkey.

Tickets to this year’s V-Day range from $25 to $1,000 and can be purchased at the following website www.vday.org or by emailing tickets@vday.org. Those purchasing the $1,000 tickets are invited to a pre-show reception and other amenities.