Oyinlola Oyinloye and Kinsey Degroat display their Rosie the Riveter inspired outfits.

This past weekend, student theater group Rehearsal Room C kicked off their annual performances of Eve Ensler’s episodic play, “The Vagina Monologues”. An encore off-campus performance is set for February 17.

First produced in 1996, “The Vagina Monologues” is a collection of nine monologues highlighting different women’s experiences with certain issues, such as body image, sexual assault, and sex work. In response to the success of the play, a global nonprofit movement known as V-Day was launched in 1998. Twenty years later, V-Day has raised more than $100 million for various groups working to end violence against women.

For their contribution to V-Day this year, Rehearsal Room C is requesting donations at the door. Proceeds will benefit Ahimsa House, an Atlanta nonprofit that offers services and assistance to victims of domestic violence who have pets, in an effort to address both domestic violence and animal cruelty, which are often connected.

This year’s production, co-directed by Abbie Argo ’18 and Lindsay Thomaston ’19, is themed ‘Rise, Resist, Unite!’—“a nod to the recent surge of protests, marches, and women-empowering movements,” according to Thomaston. All students performers also don reproductions of Rosie the Riveter’s classic denim shirt and red bandanna, in memory of Naomi Parker Fraley, the model for the iconic figure, who died in January.

To mark the 20th anniversary of V-Day, Rehearsal Room C is sharing their performance with the wider Atlanta community and will perform “The Vagina Monologues” off-campus at Hodgepodge Coffeehouse on Saturday, February 17. Find out more on OU Connect.

Performers and volunteers paint signs in preparation for The Vagina Monologues’s opening night.