The Vagina Monologues brings women’s empowerment to Academic Showcase

by Sydney Caron
edited by Ian Keating

The Vagina Monologues delivered a message of female empowerment to around 30 students and faculty in Marulli Hall during the Academic Showcase.

(Photo: Sydney Caron)

Five students performed several pieces from the Vagina Monologues, which is an episodic play written by Eve Ensler. The monologues are based off of interviews writer Eve Ensler conducted with women across the globe to break the stigma of sexual violence and to promote female empowerment.

Senior Emma Gelinas added a twist to her performance by singing. “Being a singer, I prefer to sing rather than read the piece. What’s unique about our version of the Vagina Monologues is that we’ve incorporated music. Although this differs from norm of performing these pieces, I still feel that I live vicariously through that individual’s story by singing due to how much passion I find in my voice,” Gelinas said. “It’s cool to encompass a little bit of everything and although it is considered unconventional, it shouldn’t be.”

Director Kathryn Cunningham said, “Every year a new script is published by Eve Ensler with new monologues. Some are carried into the new script the following year, some are added, and some are taken out due to changes with the times. As director, I assign parts to students who volunteer to participate in the Vagina Monologues, however, if a certain piece sticks out to them, they are more than welcome to perform what sticks out to them.”

The mission of the Vagina Monologues is to break the silence of women’s sexualities and sexual violence across the globe and start a conversation. Students who are interested in performing in the Vagina Monologues on campus in 2020 should email Kathryn Cunningham for more information.

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For this article, I attended the Vagina Monologues student performance in Marulli Hall during the Academic Showcase. I spoke with junior Kathryn Cunningham who was director of the group as well as Emma Gelinas, who performed a piece. Both of these interviews allowed me to get a grasp on the mission of the Vagina Monologues. It was important to interview them after the performance so that I could relate my questions to the pieces they had performed. It was interesting to hear about how they decided to arrange the performance for the Academic Showcase, and I hope my article promotes more students to become involved and join the conversation.