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Contact: Liz Carroll
Phone: 413/775-1420
E-mail: carroll@gcc.mass.edu

Media contact: Liz Carroll
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413/775-1420 | carroll@gcc.mass.edu

Release date: February 14, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GCC stages its own production of "Vagina Monologues"

Playwright Eve Ensler's Obie Award-winning Vagina Monologues is a celebration of female sexuality in the form of a play consisting of some 16 monologues based on interviews Ensler conducted with women around the world. In recent years, it has morphed into a manifesto of female empowerment, raising awareness and money through campus "V-Day” ("V” for vagina) productions that provide a stark counterpoint to what some see as the romantic veneer of Valentine's Day. The proceeds will benefit the GCC Women's Resource Center and the New England Learning Center for Women in Transition.

"It's about things that are generally considered taboo worldwide,” explains student director Tara Berthiaume of Greenfield, "like menstruation, domestic violence and abuse, female orgasm, and the ideas that are implanted into young girls' and women's brains about their vaginas as though they don't exist.”

The Vagina Monologues sold out last year when Amherst College sent a troupe to GCC. This year, GCC launches its own production: Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. in GCC's Stinchfield Lecture Hall on the main campus. "I think that the point gets driven home even harder when people you know, or people from your own community, are delivering it to you,” says Berthiaume. "It's definitely an emotional rollercoaster, but it's very enlightening, very empowering, and it breaks a cycle of silence for women.”

The cycle of silence refers to the problem of domestic abuse. "Our students, whether we want to admit it or not, encounter violence in their lives,” says Anne Wiley, Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies, who hears similar stories in class discussions. "Many of our students have witnessed violence. I think sometimes when they read a piece like the Vagina Monologues, they see their own lives reflected in that. As we're doing these rehearsals, students' own personal stories are beginning to emerge, which shows, I think, the power of the monologues themselves.”

Director Tara Berthiaume says her most important job "is making sure that the cast members do justice to the women who actually gave these stories to the world. Like today, I told them, ‘I want you to think about the voice that's saying that, think about who that person must be and how they must be feeling when they're giving this story to Eve Ensler, and let's make them proud. Let's do it in their name because they gave us this gift.'”

GCC's production stands out because, out of 40 productions across the state, it is one of only three (Harvard and Smith are the other two) offering sign language interpreters, thanks to the efforts of Dawn Stevenson, Director of Disability Services.

The roots of this production reach back to 2002, when Professor Wiley took 15 students from her women's studies course to a Keene State College production of The Vagina Monologues. "The students were so excited,” recalls Wiley. "A number of them came back to class the next week saying, ‘We must do it at GCC!'” Last spring, Wiley and Professor Joanne Hayes used the play as required reading in a joint "learning community” course, entitled "Through the Looking Glass,” that combined English with Women's Studies, creating another chorus of supporters for a GCC production. Many of Wiley's and Hayes' current and former students are part of the cast.

Berthiaume predicts that the show will reward the audience with both entertainment and inspiration. "I hope that teenage daughters come with their mothers", Berthiaume says. "I hope that adult daughters come with their mothers or their husbands. I hope it creates conversations that wouldn't otherwise be created.”

Tickets ($3 for students, $10-$20 donation for others) are available at the World Eye Bookshop, the GCC Bookstore, and at the door, space permitting. For more information, call 413-775-1132.