Casting call for "Vagina Monologues" benefit performances
QSanAntonio.com, January 28, 2012

Women of all ages are needed to perform Eve Ensler's play, "The Vagina Monologues," which will have three readings in San Antonio at the Guadalupe Theater in March.

The presentation of the play in San Antonio is part of a national observance called V-Day, whose participants stage benefit performances of the show in their communities. The events take place worldwide each year between February 11 and April 30 and generally benefit rape crisis centers and similar resource centers for women.

The San Antonio auditions will be held January 31, 2012 at 6 pm in the Palmetto Center for the Arts Black Box Theatre at Northwest Vista College. At the audition, you may read a prepared monologue of your choice from the play, or you may read a monologue cold.

The play will be performed in English on March 7, and in Spanish on March 8 and 9. The three performances will benefit the Rape Crisis Center, the Battered Women and Children's Shelter and P.E.A.C.E. Initiative. For more information contact the play's director Melissa Marlowe at marlowemm@yahoo.com.

"The Vagina Monologues" premiered Off-Broadway at New York City's Westside Theater in 1996. The production has been staged internationally and a television version featuring the playwright was produced by Home Box Office.

The award-winning, episodic play is based on Ensler's interviews with more than 200 women.

In last year's announcement for the San Antonio performances the promoters wrote:

"With humor and grace the piece celebrates women's sexuality and strength. Through this play and the liberation of this one word, countless women throughout the world have taken control of their bodies and their lives. For more than twelve years, 'The Vagina Monologues' has given voice to experiences and feelings not previously exposed in public."

In 1998, Ensler and others, including Willa Shalit, a producer of the Westside Theatre production, launched V-Day, a global non-profit movement that has raised over $75 million for women's anti-violence groups through benefit presentations of "The Vagina Monologues."