As couples, friends and singletons alike celebrate Valentine’s Day with chocolates and Nicholas Sparks movies, Hannah Hendren will be celebrating a different kind of V-Day: the celebration of vaginas around the world. Yes, vaginas.
“Gloria Steinem once said, ‘If something isn’t named, then it doesn’t exist,'" "The Vagina Monologues" director Hannah Hendren said. “I agree with this. If you find a mystery around a word and never talk about it, it goes under the covers.”
Hendren and Company Carolina teamed up to put on "The Vagina Monologues," a series of 200 interviews conducted by writer Eve Ensler, celebrating the vagina as a symbol of female empowerment.
“When people hear about this show, they might just think, ‘Oh we’re talking about vaginas. We get it, girls don’t like getting their periods,'” performer Kayla Brown said. “But it is so much more than that.”
The show will explore stories of the feminine experience — covering topics like sex, body image, violence against women, menstruation, love, rape, orgasm, masturbation, birth and the vagina. Hendren said each and every one of these topics has been left out of society's conversation about gender for too long.
“It is about informing women and the general public about subjects that we don’t talk about,” said Lauren Toney of Company Carolina. “Whether they’re taboo or things that people just don’t want to think about because they are a little rougher — it is about bringing awareness to that.”
The monologues will encourage women to share their stories, their experiences and help fight the taboo against the V-word, and they could not come at a more relevant time. In light of the feminist culture expressed through women’s marches, Time's Up and the #MeToo movement, "The Vagina Monologues" is uncommonly timely.
Time Magazine’s 2017 Person of the Year featured "The Silence Breakers: The Voices That Launched the Movement." Although empowering and progressive, the award is astounding because women speaking up has become such a spectacle, when it really shouldn’t be, Hendren said. She said women should be able to tell their stories freely and proudly, and this performance will give them a chance to stand together.
The performances are Feb. 16 -18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Joan H. Gillings Center for Dramatic Arts in Room 104. Tickets can be bought in the Pit or at the performance. Student tickets are $5 in advance and $7 at the door. All other tickets are $7 in advance and $10 at the door.
