The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler has been an inspirational piece of theatre, especially for women, since its premier in 1996.

Ashland University’s Theatre Honorary presents The Vagina Monologues on April 1 at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. in the Studio Theater.

The Vagina Monologues were written to empower women and celebrate their sexuality. The show started out small but it is now the center of many campaigns to stop violence against women.

“It originally started out as a one woman show that she was performing in the basement of a bar in New York City and by the next year it had won the OBE award for Best New Play,” said Director Rachael Swartz. “And in now the past 20 years, productions of the Vagina Monologues have raised over $100-million to help educate and to promote women’s safety and to advocate against domestic violence.”

The AU production of The Vagina Monologues is benefitting The Ashland Rape Crisis/Domestic Violence Safe Haven Shelter. Donations of cash, beauty products and home supplies will be collected at the showings.

Swartz noted that the AU production of The Vagina Monologues is doing a lot of good both for the students involved in Theatre Department and the community.

“I thought this was an excellent melding of not only good for the community in terms of there being donations received,” Swartz said. “It’s good for the actors to stretch and push themselves, it’s good for the students as women to discuss and to learn more about some of these incredible issues that we might face or we do face.”

The show is not only about the devastating issues facing women, but there are also many funny monologues.

“It’s not exclusively Sturm and Drang. It’s not all sad discussion of assault and tragedy,” said Swartz. “There’s quite a bit of fun in it, and having the opportunity to express yourself as a woman with no consequence is kind of a great time.”

Swartz continued, “There’s a lot of fun in the piece. There’s a lot of self-reflection, and I think that it’s just all around an excellent piece.”