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Austin Peay State University Women’s and Gender Studies program presents “The Vagina Monologues” March 27th and 28th

Austin Peay State UniversityClarksville, TN – This month, the Austin Peay State University Women’s and Gender Studies Program, the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and V-Day are celebrating 11 years of producing Eve Ensler’s award-winning play, “The Vagina Monologues.”

The show will be performed at 7:00pm on March 27th and 28th in Clement Auditorium. Tickets are $5.00.

In the last 11 years, more than 400 APSU students have performed in the show, raising more than $15,000 for the Clarksville offices of Legal Aid of Middle Tennessee, Sexual Assault Center and Safehouse.  This year money will be raised toward an APSU student scholarship in the Women’s Center to create and promote campus programs to end violence against women and girls, which is the V-Day mission.

This year’s student show is directed by Maria Lones, Heather Carbajal and Tabitha Gunn, all students in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.  The faculty alumnae show is directed by Jessica Axley, an APSU Women’s and Gender Studies alumna.

The student show will be performed March 27th and the alumni/faculty show will be performed March 28th.

V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of playwright/founder Eve Ensler’s award-winning play “The Vagina Monologues” and other artistic works.

Each year Ensler writes a monologue to spotlight the efforts of women to change their lives.  Called the spotlight monologue, the V-Day international website collects 10 percent of the profits raised by each V-Day production. This year the spotlight monologue is dedicated to the common history of racism, poverty, slavery, colonialism and war that has thrown women into an endless cycle of violence and disempowerment.

V-Day’s work in the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo, post-Katrina-New Orleans and the earthquake-devastated country of Haiti is to reveal the links between these issues and support women on the ground who are struggling for liberation and a violence-free future.

In 2012, more than 5,800 V-Day benefit events took place produced by volunteer activists in the U.S. and around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls. To date, the V-Day movement has raised more than $85 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, reopened shelters and funded more than 13,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq.

More than 300 million people have seen a V-Day benefit event in their community. V-Day has received many acknowledgments including Worth Magazine’s 100 Best Charities, Marie Claire Magazine’s Top Ten Charities, one of the Top-Rated organizations on Philanthropedia/Guidestar and Great Nonprofits.

It is the honor and pleasure for the Austin Peay Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance to have been part of this fundraising effort to support the women in this community for the last 11 years, and the programs are committed to performing the show until the violence stops.

For more information, contact Dr. Jill Eichhorn, APSU associate professor of Women’s Studies and English and coordinator of the Women’s Studies Program at APSU, at eichhornje@apsu.edu.

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