Create a 6 pages page paper that discusses the vagina monologues: expressing the female through the female body. Prominent actresses who have participated in various productions of the play include Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Idina Menzel, Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon, Marin Mazzie, Cyndi Lauper, Mary Testa, and Oprah Winfrey (Upcoming Events and Things to Do 2011).

One of the things that occurred due to the popularity of the play was that V-Day emerged, which is a global movement in which 14 February is designated as a day to raise funds for groups who fight against violence against women. This specification of a day in which to give attention to this vital issue has become a rallying point through which to raise awareness (DeLuzio 2010:219). The concept of the play is to celebrate what it means to be female, the playa product of interviews with over 200 women used to create the dialogue that occurs. In celebrating what is female, the play has created a public discourse on the gender of women that has inspired issues that are related to the plight of women to be given greater awareness (Deluzio 2010: 219). In even greater importance, the play is a political tool, a way that women have come to support their independence from oppression and the celebration of their gender. The first V-day event occurred in 1998 with celebrity women performing the monologues in a sold-out performance with 2500 seats with the proceeds going to antiviolence groups (Ensler 2007: 197).

The Vagina Monologues is a series of character-driven pieces that are expressed almost as if they are poetry, each revealing a different experience associated with the female gender and including topics on sex, love, tenderness, embarrassment, cruelty, pain, sexuality, and pleasure. As the popularity of the play developed, the work began to be explored through ensemble groups, more than one actor involved in creating the production. The play attracts politically active theatre groups as well as college campuses that use the opportunity to explore the content in meaningful productions that explore the social issues involved in the work (Ensler 2007).

Ensler (2007:xl) discusses in the preface to the 2007 copy of the play how her examination of the vagina begins because as a little girl she was raped.