CCU students host V-Day event to raise money for local rape crisis center
The event is produced by Students Advocating Gender Equality (SAGE), a student organization at CCU, and is sponsored by the Women's and Gender Studies program as part of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls.
This is the first year CCU is hosting V-Day, though for the past 13 years, students at the University have organized performances of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" to create dialogue and raise awareness of violence against women, according to junior Krystina Millar, a sociology major and the president of SAGE.
"We are still living in a society where violence against women happens on a daily basis," Millar said. "This performance highlights voices affected by violence in a way that every single person in the audience will be able to relate to in one way or another."
"A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer" is a collection of monologues commissioned in 2006 by V-Day and edited by Ensler and Mollie Doyle. It includes topics and authors such as Maya Angelou on women's work; Dave Eggers on Sudanese abduction; Carol Gilligan on domestic violence; Jane Fonda on confidence; and more.
The performances are directed by Amanda Masterpaul, a teaching associate in the Department of Theatre at CCU, and Jessica Durivage Kerridge, a CCU theater alumnae.
CCU students reading during the performance include Jordyn Davis, a theatre major from Charleston, S.C.; Xavier Jackson, a theatre major from Beaufort, S.C.; and Hope Smith, an English and theatre double major from Seneca, S.C., among others.
V-Day raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of "The Vagina Monologues" and other works and has raised more than $100 million since its founding.
The Johnson Auditorium is in Room 116 of the E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration at 119 Chanticleer Drive E. on CCU's main Conway campus. Parking is available in lot R, outside the Brittain Building and adjacent to the Wall Building; for more information, visit coastal.edu/safety/parking.
For more information about the event, contact Millar at 843-340-9696 or kmmillar@coastal.edu.