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Home > Press > Press Releases > V-Day Produces Workshop Productions...

V-Day Produces Workshop Productions of Founder Eve Ensler's Newest Work "Emotional Creature" in Johannesburg & Paris

07/08/2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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V-DAY PRODUCES WORKSHOP PRODUCTIONS OF FOUNDER
EVE ENSLER'S NEWEST WORK EMOTIONAL CREATURE IN JOHANNESBURG & PARIS

DIRECTED BY JO BONNEY, CAST INCLUDES INTERNATIONAL & LOCAL TEEN GIRL

GIRLS INVOLVED IN EVERY FACET OF THE PRODUCTION

July 11, 2011 - This summer, V-Day, the worldwide activist movement to end violence against women and girls, is producing the first stage in the theatrical journey of V-Day Founder and Tony Award winning playwright Eve Ensler's best-selling new work Emotional Creature. Ensler, with Obie Award-winning director Jo Bonney, is workshopping the play directly with an international and local cast of teens at The Market Theatre Laboratory in Johannesburg and the Ciné 13 Théâtre in Paris. Girls worldwide are involved in every facet of the production including acting on stage, live blogging/tweeting from the shows, submitting their own images for the set design, and attending special school performances and local V-Girls workshops.

Emotional Creature, based on the book I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World, published by Villard in 2010, is made up of original monologues about and for girls from around the world. Through rants, poetry, questions, and facts, we come to understand the universality of girls everywhere: their resiliency, their wildness, their pain, their fears, their secrets, and their triumphs. Placing their stories squarely center stage, Emotional Creature explores the issues that preoccupy girls worldwide.

Made possible with the generous support of the NoVo Foundation and private donors, the workshop productions kick off in Johannesburg on July 15 and run through July 27 at The Market Theatre Laboratory. The cast includes an eclectic mix of international and local teens including five undiscovered young South African actors sourced from auditions across a range of high schools in Johannesburg. The cast is Charmian Bonnet, Molly Houlahan, Antoinette Kayembe, Samukelisiwe Khumalo, Ratanang Mogotsi, Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, and Karabo Tshikubu. Tickets are on sale now and available at www.computicket.com.

"I felt it was so important to begin these workshop productions of Emotional Creature in South Africa, as Africa is the heart of the world, and the story of emotional creature is about opening and exploding the heart," says Ensler.

In South Africa and Paris, V-Day is hosting workshops to bring locals teens together where they can share, envision and strategize what girls want and what they want to change. These activities are part of V-Day's V-Girls campaign, a burgeoning youth movement, grounded in girls' voices, aspirations and world-view and developed in conjunction with Emotional Creature. V-Girls website – www.v-girls.org - will feature blogging, photos and video from V-Girls who are part of the show. Eve also sent her first tweet from South Africa, inspired by the production (follow Eve @eveensler, follow V-Girls @emocreature).

The production will move to Paris in September with performances beginning on the 14th and running through September 25th at the Ciné 13 Théâtre. The production will be performed in English with French subtitles, and the cast will include Molly Houlahan, Oona Chaplin, Sophie Lor, Gaëlle Marie, Mégane Mandin, and Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa. Tickets are now on sale and available at www.cine13-theatre.com.

After the show is workshopped in Johannesburg and Paris, Emotional Creature will receive its world premiere in June 2012 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, CA. A commercial run will follow. Berkeley Repertory Theatre is recognized internationally for developing new and ambitious works that speak to contemporary issues. Among the many plays that have originated there are American Idiot, In The Next Room (or the vibrator play), and Passing Strange.

About V-Day
V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Tony award winning Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler's play The Vagina Monologues and other artistic works. In 2011, over 5,600 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 over $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, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 13,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic Of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. In 2001, V-Day was named one of Worth Magazine's "100 Best Charities," in 2006 one of Marie Claire Magazine's Top Ten Charities, and in 2010 was named as one of the Top-Rated organizations on GreatNonprofits.

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