Saturday, March 21, 2015

DFW Vagina Monologues 2015

This piece was originally written March 12 for the DFW Vagina Monologues blog.

After a whirlwind 2015 season—twice-a-week rehearsals, a bake sale, comedy show fundraiser, burlesque show, craft nights, and more—the DFW Vagina Monologues, led by director Cyran Harrington, kicked off their opening performance on the evening of March 6 at their new venue, The Kitchen Dog Theater.

They had one brief walk-through together to finalize lighting and blocking with stage manager Barbara Grimes and sound-man Johnny Ballinger just an hour before the show, but you wouldn’t know it to see their performances. Last year the cast had the aid of microphones on stage and this year learned new skills for warming up and projecting their voices in the black box theater with the aid of director AND performer Natalia Borja. (See their wacky warm-ups here on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/n2xaepc.)

The players opened to a full house Friday night, marking amazing growth compared to last year’s show. Audiences loved every minute, laughing and crying in turn at each hilarious and heartfelt piece. They sold out the next night, too. The monologues’ topics ranged from humorous diatribes about “Hair,” tampons, and first periods to pieces covering international war crimes and closer-to-home domestic violence; they were touching, moving, triggering, heartbreaking . . . and enlightening.

The Monologues exist to raise awareness and put an end to global sex- and gender-based violence. The DFW crew raised $1705 this year for their local beneficiary, Hope’s Door of Plano, which runs a domestic violence shelter and provides intervention and education programs to the community.

But wait—there’s more! You don’t have to wait til 2016 to pitch in to help. The DFW group is now selling t-shirts, mugs, and hoodies online to raise additional money for Hope’s Door. You can check out the swag online at http://tinyurl.com/khvb3me. The gear features the DFW Vagina Monologues’ unique logo by designer Isabel Morales and will only be available for 24 days. After that, it’s gone.

We won’t stop until the violence stops.

#rise4revolution #DFWvaginamonologues

No comments:

Post a Comment