UI Women’s Center to host play Any one of Us: Words from Prison
Seventeen years ago, a feminist playwright launched the first V-Day campaign to demand an end to violence against women and girls.
Now, many years later, the movement is stronger than ever — even at the University of Idaho.
While UI hosted the award-winning play for many years in celebration of V-Day, this year will be different.
The UI Women’s Center will convey the expressions of fierceness and honesty of women who experienced violence in their life by hosting a production of “Any One of Us: Words from Prison,” another play written by Eve Ensler, the creator of “The Vagina Monologues.”
Bekah MillerMacPhee, assistant director for programs at the Women’s Center, said while she recognizes the importance and prominence of “The Vagina Monologues,” it was time for the community to try something new.
“All of the characters in this play have experienced violence before they went to prison,” MillerMacPhee said. “It’s more fierce and raw.”
The show started Thursday, and will continue to be held at 7 p.m. through Saturday in the Bruce Pitman Center International Ballroom, formerly the Student Union Building. Tickets are $8 for students and $10 for the general public.
V-Day promotes events like Any One of Us to raise money and renew the spirits of existing anti-violence groups while bringing more attention to fighting violence against women and girls, MillerMacPhee said.
Proceeds will go to organizations that help aid V-Day’s mission to end violence against women and girls. Alternatives to Violence of the Palouse, which is also supporting the V-Day event, is the main recipient of the fundraiser. Other sponsors of the event include the Office of the Dean of Students, Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho, the Martin Institute, Moscow Wild Art and Provost and Executive Vice President Katherine Aiken.
Ensler’s process of writing Any One of Us came from visiting a women’s prison in New York, MillerMacPhee said. It was there she interviewed women about their experiences with violence in prison. She led the incarcerated women through a series of writing workshops, producing the pieces that would later form the play.
To make this production more significant to the Moscow community, MillerMacPhee and director of the Women’s Center, Lysa Salsbury, contacted Latah County Probation Services to extend an invitation to any woman or girl who served time in Latah County to submit pieces like the monologues Ensler made into the play. Two women sent in their works, MillerMacPhee said, so two of the nine actresses will portray women from the community.
The cast and crew include nine actresses, directors Meg Licht and Samantha Opdahl and stage manager Samantha Hansen.
The nine women were chosen after the directors held open auditions in Shoup Hall in October. Rehearsal for the play started in November and the team of women have been working to perfect the show since then.
Licht and Opdahl said when she first began to work on the play, she wanted the final showing to be performed in a “round,” which means the audience would surround the performers on all sides. Opdahl said the performance would be more intimate in this arena.
“Because of the sensitive material in the monologues and because of the fact that these are real people’s words, these are real experiences,” Opdahl said. “It adds an intimacy that kind of breaks down the barriers around these sorts of situations and it puts the audience in the thick of it and it helps to make them really aware of what’s going on.”
Licht said she hopes audience members will be emotionally touched by the stories the actresses will share.
“All these stigmas that we put on convicts or people that are incarcerated are based on a lot of bad stereotypes,” Licht said. “That they are violent and angry, drug user and all these things that aren’t necessarily inherent within a person, but brought about by circumstances that are not in their control … so just more of a tolerance and understanding, and definitely not a pity, but a sympathy.”
Emily Mosset can be reached at [email protected]