Ars Sybelle Sambou Bayonne In Champlain College Theatre Production of 'The Vagina Monoloques'

2014 Feb 6

"The Vagina Monologues" will be presented by Champlain Theatre on Friday, Feb. 14, at 7 p.m. in Aiken Hall's Morgan Room featuring 11 Champlain College students. The play, first performed in 1996, has since been translated into over 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries.

Created by playwright and activist Eve Ensler out of over 200 interviews with women and girls, this show is a series of character-driven pieces, almost like poetry, each revealing a different woman's experience with such topics as love, sex, tenderness, embarrassment, cruelty, pain, and pleasure.

Ars Sybelle Sambou Bayonne, of Burlington is among the members of the cast of the show. Core faculty members Betsy Allen -Pennebaker and Rowshan Nemazee were advisors to the production.

Ensler's experience performing "The Vagina Monologues" inspired her to create V-Day, a global activist movement to stop violence against women and girls. She has devoted her life to stopping violence, envisioning a planet in which women and girls will be free to thrive, rather than merely survive.

Ninety percent of the proceeds from the one-night only performance will be donated to Hope Works, a local non-profit dedicated to ending all forms of sexual violence. The remaining 10 percent will be donated to V-Day.

"Monologues" inspired her to create V-Day, a global activist movement to stop violence against women and girls. She has devoted her life to stopping violence, envisioning a planet in which women and girls will be free to thrive, rather than merely survive.

Today, V-Day raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of The Vagina Monologues and other artistic works. V-Day stages large-scale benefits and produces innovative gatherings, films, and campaigns to educate and change social attitudes towards violence against women. In 2013, over 5,800 V-Day benefits took place. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $100 million for women's education, shelters, and community-based anti-violence programs around the world.

For more information, please visit vday.org and hopeworksvt.org.