Eve Ensler
Eve Ensler | |
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Born | |
Occupation(s) | Playwright, writer, performer, activist |
Eve Ensler (born May 25, 1953) is an American playwright, performer, feminist, activist and artivist, best known for her play The Vagina Monologues.[1][2][3]
Personal life
Ensler was born in New York, the daughter of a housewife and an executive.[4] Her father was Jewish and her mother was from a Christian background.[5] She reports having been physically and sexually abused by her father when she was a child.[5][6] She graduated from Middlebury College in 1975. She married Richard McDermott in 1978, and divorced him 10 years later. She is the adoptive mother of actor Dylan McDermott, whom she adopted when he was 15 and she was 23.[7]
Ensler wrote an article in The Guardian (June 12, 2010) in which she mentioned that she is receiving treatment for uterine cancer.[8]
The Vagina Monologues
The Vagina Monologues was written in 1996. First performed in the basement of the Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village, The Vagina Monologues has been translated into 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Celebrities who have starred in the play include: Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Idina Menzel, Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon, Marin Mazzie, Cyndi Lauper, Mary Testa and Oprah Winfrey. Ensler was awarded the Obie Award in 1996 for ‘Best New Play’ and in 1999 was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship Award in Playwriting. She has also received the Berrilla-Kerr Award for Playwriting, the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, and the Jury Award for Theater at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.[9]
Recent works
Ensler has been involved in several films, including V-Day's Until The Violence Stops and the PBS documentary What I Want My Words To Do To You, and has appeared on television on Real Time with Bill Maher (August 26, 2005) and Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry (August 12, 2005).
From October 2005 to April 2006, Ensler toured twenty North American cities with her play The Good Body, following engagements on Broadway, at ACT in San Francisco, and in a workshop production at Seattle Repertory Theatre. The Good Body addresses why women of many cultures and backgrounds perceive pressure to change the way they look in order to be accepted in the eyes of society.
Ensler's play, The Treatment debuted on September 12, 2006, at the Culture Project in New York City. This play explores the moral and psychological trauma that are the result of participation in military conflicts. It stars her adoptive son, Dylan McDermott.
In 2006, Eve released her first major work written exclusively for the printed page. Insecure At Last: Losing It In Our Security-Obsessed World (Villard; Hardcover; October 3, 2006). In Insecure At Last, Ensler explores how people live today, the measures people take to keep themselves safe, and how people can experience freedom by letting go of the deceptive notion of "protection." In 2006 Eve also co-edited A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer, an anthology of writings about violence against women.
Eve's newest work, I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around The World, a collection of original monologues about and for girls that aims inspire girls to take agency over their minds, bodies, hearts and curiosities, was released February 2010 in book form by Random House and made The New York Times Best Seller list. The book was workshopped in July 2010 at New York Stage and Film and Vassar College, moving towards an Off-Broadway production. The theatrical production of the piece, titled Emotional Creature, will have its United States debut at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in Berkeley, CA in June 2012. In February 2012, The South African production of Emotional Creature was nominated for a 2011 Naledi Theatre Award for Best Ensemble Production/Cutting Edge Production.
Activism
Ensler is a prominent activist addressing issues of violence against women and girls. In 1998, her experience performing The Vagina Monologues inspired her to create V-Day, a global activist movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day raises funds and awareness through annual benefit productions of The Vagina Monologues. In 2010, more than 5,400 V-Day events took place in over 1,500 locations in the U.S. and around the world. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $80 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 12,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. These safe houses provide women sanctuary from abuse, female genital mutilation and honor killing.[10] The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.
In February 2004, Ensler, alongside Sally Field, Jane Fonda and Christine Lahti, protested to have the Mexican government re-investigate the slayings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juárez, a city along the Texas border.
Ensler is a very close supporter of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) and went to Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban. She supports Afghan women and has organized many programs for them. She organized one event named the "Afghani Women's Summit For Democracy".
Ensler has led a writing group since 1998 at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, which was portrayed in What I Want My Words To Do To You.[11] Judy Clark, Kathy Boudin, and Pamela Smart were among the writing group's participants featured in the film.
In 2011, V-Day and the Fondation Panzi (DRC), with support from UNICEF, opened the City of Joy, a new community for women survivors of gender violence in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). City of Joy will provide up to 180 Congolese women a year with an opportunity to benefit from group therapy; self-defense training; comprehensive sexuality education (covering HIV/AIDS, family planning); economic empowerment; storytelling; dance; theater; ecology and horticulture. Created from their vision, Congolese women run, operate and direct City of Joy themselves. The City of Joy celebrated its first graduating class in February 2012.
In 2012, along with the V-Day movement, Ensler founded One Billion Rising, a global protest campaign to end violence, and promote justice and gender equality for women.
Awards and honors
She has received numerous awards for her artistic and anti-violence work.
Awards and Honors (Select):
- Obie Award for THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, 1997
- Guggenheim Fellowship Award in Playwriting, 1999
- Berrilla-Kerr Award for Playwriting, 2000
- Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, 2001
- Amnesty International Media Spotlight Award for Leadership, 2002
- The Matrix Award, 2002
- Jury Award for Theater at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, 2002
- Lion of Judah by the United Jewish Communities, 2002.[12][13]
- Sundance Film Festival’s" Freedom Of Expression" award for WHAT I WANT MY WORDS TO DO TO YOU, 2003
- Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from her alma mater, Middlebury College, 2003
- NETC Theatre Award, a regional Boston theatre award, 2004
- NOW Award from the Intrepid Award Gala, 2004
- The Civil Revolutionary Award from Miami Dade College, 2004
- Award for International Peace Efforts from Cardozo Law School, 2004
- The Avon Award, 2005
- The Sandra Day O’Connor Award from The Arizona Foundation for Women in Phoenix, 2005
- Honorary Doctor of Human Letters from Manhattanville College, 2005
- Honorary Doctor of Communications from Simmons College, 2006
- City of New York Proclamation in honor of founding and her work for V-Day, 2006
- OK2BU Humanitarian Award In recognition of outstanding contributions to the LGBT community, 2006
- Ms. Ensler has also been honored for her effort to end violence against women and girls by such organizations as Planned Parenthood (2004, 2006), The Women’s Prison Association (2004), Sahkti (2004), and several LGBT centers (2004,2006).
- In 2011, Eve Ensler was awarded the Isabelle Stevenson Award at the 65th Tony Awards, which recognizes an individual from the theater community who has made a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of humanitarian, social service, or charitable organizations.[14]
Criticism
The Vagina Monologues includes a section entitled "The Little Coochie Snorcher that Could". This portion of the play, as originally performed, has been criticized for including a scene where a 13-year-old girl is given a drink by a 24-year-old woman who then has sex with her.[15] At the conclusion of the segment, the narrator (the grown-up thirteen year old girl) fondly reminisces about the event, claiming that it helped to nurture her and help her grow as a woman, and included the line, "If it was rape, it was good rape".
The segment received criticism not only for depicting the event as a "good rape", but also for forming a double standard, as elsewhere in the play, male-on-female rape is depicted as not only inexcusable but the ultimate act of violence against women. The scene was modified in later performances; the young girl's age was changed to 16, and the "good rape" line was omitted.
Feminist Camille Paglia criticised Ensler's "obsession with male evil", suggesting that this combined with her "claimed history of physical abuse and mental breakdowns" made her "the new Andrea Dworkin".[16] Bernard Goldberg listed Ensler at #96 in his 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37).[17]
Selected works
Plays
- Conviction
- Lemonade
- The Depot
- Floating Rhoda and the Glue Man
- Extraordinary Measures
- The Vagina Monologues
- The Good Body
- Necessary Targets
- The Treatment
Books
- I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World
- Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security Obsessed World
- The Good Body
- Necessary Targets
- Vagina Warriors
- A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer
Films
- Until the Violence Stops (2004)
- What I Want My Words to Do to You: Voices From Inside a Women's Maximum Security Prison (2003)
- The Vagina Monologues (2002)
- Fear No More: Stop Violence Against Women (2002) - interviewee
References
- ^ The New York Times
- ^ The New York Times
- ^ Politics, Power and Passion, The New York Times, December 2, 2011. Please see the fifth segment by Eve Ensler.
- ^ http://www.thelwordart.com/schecter-editions/50-eve-ensler.html
- ^ a b Jewish Journal
- ^ Ensler, Eve. "Happiness in Body and Soul", 17:32.Ted.com Retrieved 2009-09-10 13:51 UTC.
- ^ McDermott, Shiva Rose. "V-Day Activist Spotlights: Shiva Rose McDermott" Vday.org Retrieved 2009-10-26
- ^ Guardian.co.uk
- ^ The New York Times
- ^ "Women Rising XIX: Masters of the Spoken Word" Making Contact, produced by National Radio Project. March 11, 2009.
- ^ What I Want My Words To Do To You, PBS, premiered December 16, 2003
- ^
"International Lion of Judah Conference (Page 3)". Retrieved Feb. 11, 2010.
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(help) - ^
"2002 INTERNATIONAL LION OF JUDAH CONFERENCE OF UNITED JEWISH COMMUNITIES OPENS TODAY IN NATION'S CAPITAL". Retrieved Feb. 11, 2010.
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(help) - ^ Cbc.ca
- ^ Zetetics.com
- ^ Salon.com
- ^ Books.google.com
External links
- American dramatists and playwrights
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- American women's rights activists
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- Middlebury College alumni
- People from Westchester County, New York
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