Voices: Passing the Torch
It may not be as difficult as watching your children grow up, but handing over the reins of a project you've steered since its conception is by no means easy.
When Wendy Butler (then Maopolski), editor of electric city, and I read Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues three years ago, we instantly shared the same dream. We didn't even have to speak the words aloud to know what the other was thinking.
Someone had to produce this astonishing and empowering piece of theatre in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
But who?
It didn't take long for us to realize that if we didn't do it ourselves we might be waiting forever. I shouldn't speak for Wendy, but I'll admit I was scared. This was a big endeavor. But the idea of living in a city where this liberating and educational piece of theatre COULDN'T be staged was ultimately more frightening. We learned that V-Day was a worldwide grassroots effort through which we could direct ninety percent of our proceeds to organizations in our own community working to stop violence against women and girls. We thought about the future awaiting our elementary aged daughters.
We decided we had no choice but to risk public criticism and artistic failure and devote ourselves to a lot of work that neither of us really had the time to do. We got an encouraging thumbs-up from the late Jason Miller and secured the support of Diva Theater's Paige Balitski and began recruiting any and every inspiring woman we could find.
I was as elated as I was frightened. I had been a theatre major with a minor in women's studies and the project promised to combine my greatest passions in one endeavor. This was feminist political theatre of a scale I had imagined for a decade. And the further we ventured into the project, the more fulfilling the work seemed to become. The audience would be deeply affected by our production of The Vagina Monologues. We would raise significant awareness of the issues of domestic violence and homicide right here in Northeast Pennsylvania.
After the fact I realized that those most affected by V-Day were those who got involved. When the shock gave way, it appeared that no one, perhaps, has been more changed than those who in organizing the project, had been thrust into a position of leadership. If only for a few months, I would stood before the women and men of my community as an example that female leadership was not just possible, it was pretty darn desirable, too.
I'm sure there are several good reasons that the V-Day mother organization (as I like to refer to it) places a two-year cap on any given volunteers serving as organizers of the V-Day Worldwide campaign in their community. But the one that has come to make the most sense to me is that new women deserve that transforming experience that I've had the honor to relish.
Wendy and I are not steering this year's V-Day Scranton benefit production of The Vagina Monologues, but we continue to stand by the multiple messages of the project. The local headlines still shock us with tragedy - domestic murder/suicides, women so desperate for love and support that they're willing to harbor drug dealers from out of town, even infant abuse. I genuinely hope that V-Day Scranton 2004 raises twice the money we were able to collect in our first two years.
V-Day Scranton 2004 will present this year's benefit production of The Vagina Monologues in the ideally red and cozy splendor of the Scranton Cultural Center's Shopland Hall on Friday, Feb. 21. I'm free this year from the elevated stress levels you might detect emanating from this year's admirable co-chairs Linda Eisen and Phoebe Sharpe.
Is it difficult to take a step back from a phenomenon you've birthed? Absolutely. But it's also rewarding to watch your children become strong enough to carry on with out you. I'll be sitting in the audience this year, applauding each and every "vagina warrior," of our past, present, and future.
--alicia grega-pikul, 29 January 2004
