Contact: Marketing & Communications: editor@mail.montclair.edu (973) 655-4333
UPPER MONTCLAIR, N.J. -- The New York Times called a New York benefit performance of “The Vagina Monologues” the “hottest ticket in town.”
Area residents will have a chance to share in that excitement and aid a worthy cause by attending benefit performances of Eve Ensler’s work at Montclair State University’s McEachern Recital Hall in the Music Building Wednesday, Feb. 13, at 8 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 14, at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m.
Standard tickets are $15; student tickets are $10 with a valid student ID. Tickets may be reserved by phone, but must be paid for and picked up within three days. Tickets go on sale Feb. 4. To reserve tickets, or for additional information, call MSU’s Women’s Center at (973) 655-5114.
All proceeds will benefit local charities that work to end violence against women.
Hailed by the Daily News as “intelligent” and "courageous,” the Obie Award-winner dives into the mystery, humor, pain, power, wisdom, outrage and excitement buried in women’s experiences. Based on interviews with a diverse group of hundreds of women -- from a Long Island antiques dealer to a Bosnian refugee -- it brazenly explores questions often pondered, but seldom asked: Do women like their vaginas? What do women call their vaginas? What can you tell about a woman by the way she moans when she is aroused?
The MSU benefit is part of V-Day, a worldwide movement to stop sexual violence against women and girls and to proclaim Valentine's Day as the day to celebrate women and demand the end of abuse. For the fourth year in a row, the V-Day College Campaign is coming to hundreds of college and university campuses around the world. Additional information on V-Day and violence against women can be found at http://www.vday.org.
Critics are unanimous in their praise.
According to The London Telegraph, “‘The Vagina Monologues’ is a work which is inescapably universal for women, and manages to be feminist without being man-hating, entertaining without being trite and political without being earnest.”
“How anyone could find ‘The Vagina Monologues’ anti-male or pornographic is beyond me,” the Nation stated. “It’s a veritable ode to warm, quirky, affectionate, friendly, passionate sex. The only enemies are misogyny, sexual shame and sexual violence.”
Added O magazine, “By the end of the show, the audience has moved from slightly embarrassed to highly engaged, sometimes enraged, and ultimately enlarged. They leave understanding that a woman is more that the sum of her parts, but if some of her parts are unmentionable, she is diminished.”
And the Los Angeles Times concluded, “Eve Ensler’s ‘The Vagina Monologues’ is not just a play anymore. It’s a social movement.”
MSU is New Jersey’s second largest university. It offers the advantages of a large university -- a comprehensive undergraduate curriculum with a global focus, a broad variety of superior graduate programs, and a diverse faculty and student body -- combined with a small college’s attention to students.
More information on the University is available on its website: www.montclair.edu.
MSU is located at the intersection of Valley Road and Normal Avenue in Upper Montclair. The campus is one mile south of the junction of routes 3 and 46, 14 miles west of New York City.