SAC Gives Back with Benefit Performance of 'The Vagina Monologues'

While many East Enders are bustling around trying to make arrangements for Valentine’s Day before it’s too late, the fine folks at the Southampton Arts Center (SAC) are busy raising awareness for a different kind of V-Day.

SAC has planned a special day consisting of two readings of The Vagina Monologues on Saturday, February 24 at 2 and 7 p.m. with the net proceeds being donated to The Retreat, an organization dedicated to providing shelter and support for victims of domestic abuse.

This event is designed to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of both Eve Ensler’s award-winning play and the founding of V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against women and young girls.

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Over the past two decades, tens of thousands of communities and college campuses have staged V-Day benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues in over 200 countries and territories. V-Day activists have raised consciousness, changed laws to protect women and girls, funded rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters, educated their communities and raised well over $100 million in urgently needed funds for groups doing the essential work of ending violence and serving survivors and their families.

The Vagina Monologues has surpassed a level of influence and inspiration that most plays could never dream of. The New York Times went as far as to label it, “probably the most important piece of political theater of the last decade.”

The play’s narrative is an Obie Award-winning whirlwind tour of a forbidden zone which introduces a wildly divergent gathering of female voices, including a six-year-old girl, a septuagenarian New Yorker, a vagina workshop participant, a woman who witnesses the birth of her granddaughter, a Bosnian survivor of rape and a feminist happy to have found a man who liked to look at it.

This rendition is directed by Jenna Mate and produced by Valerie diLorenzo and Amy Kirwin. The cast includes Kathleen Carthy, Carolann DiPirro, Rebecca Edana, Tina Jones, Lola Lama, Kristen Lowman, Amayrani Martinez, Kate Mueth, Cindy Pease Roe, Susan Stout, Retreat Director Loretta Davis, Legislator Bridget Fleming and more.

SAC will present The Vagina Monologues on February 24 with readings at 2 and 7 p.m. The 2 o’clock performance will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Loretta Davis, and the one at 7 o’clock will be followed by a Q&A with the cast plus a meet and greet reception.

For ticket info visit southamptonartscenter.org or call 631-283-0967.