V-Day Chicago West Town Presents A MEMORY, A MONOLOGUE, A RANT, AND A PRAYER Tonight

V-Day Chicago West Town has announced its two night benefit reading of "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer: Writings to Stop Violence Against Women" tonight, February 22 and Friday, February 28, 2014 at 7:30 pm at Gorilla Tango Bucktown.

Edited by Eve Ensler and Mollie Doyle, "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer" is a compilation of groundbreaking writing by world-renowned authors and playwrights. Justine Houghton will direct on behalf of V-Day Chicago West Town in its premiere performance. All performances take place at Gorilla Tango Bucktown, 1919 N Milwaukee, Chicago IL, 60647.

Tickets are $15 online, $20 at the door and and can be purchased at gorillatango.com/bucktown or by calling 773-598-4549. 90% of ticket proceeds will go to the Center for Advancing Domestic Peace, Inc.; 10% of proceeds will go back to the V-Day initiative started by Ensler.

Since 2006, "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer" has been part of the very successful V-Day performance events that happen around the country in February of every year. Diverse voices rise up in a collective roar to break open, expose, and examine the insidiousness of violence at all levels: brutality, neglect, a punch, or even a put-down. V-Day Chicago West Town's evenings of performance will feature selections by Edward Albee, Maya Angelou, Michael Cunningham, Dave Eggers, Sharon Olds, and Jane Fonda. Many local performers and women's rights advocates will perform.

These benefit performances are presented as part of V-Day's One Billion Rising Campaign for Justice, a global call for women survivors of violence and those who love them to gather safely in places where they are entitled to justice: courthouses, police stations, government offices, school administration buildings, work places, sites of environmental injustice, military courts, embassies, places of worship, home, or simply public gathering places where women deserve to feel safe but too often do not. There, they release their stories through art, dance, marches, ritual, song, spoken word, sit-ins, and testimonies. Last year, over 5,800 V-Day benefits were held around the world raising funds and awareness toward ending violence against women. Now, V-Day Chicago's West Town group has joined this global movement as part of the V-Day 2014 College/Community Campaign.

MORE ABOUT ONE BILLION RISING: One Billion Rising was the biggest mass action in human history. The campaign began as a call to action based on the staggering UN statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than one billion women and girls. On February 14, 2013, people across the world came together to strike, dance, and RISE in defiance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an end at last to violence against women. Over 10,000 events took place on the ground and the campaign took over media and social media worldwide for 48 hours, trending in 7 countries. The wildly successful grassroots campaign was covered widely by media in all corners of world.

MORE 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 Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler's award winning play The Vagina Monologues and other artistic works. The V-Day movement has raised over $100 million; educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it; crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns; 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. V-Day has received numerous acknowledgements and awards and is, one of the Top-Rated organizations on both Charity Navigator and Guidestar. V-Day's most recent global campaign, ONE BILLION RISING, galvanized over one billion women and men on a global day of action towards ending violence against women and girls. A V-Day Campaign is a catalyst for mobilizing women and men to heighten awareness about violence against women and girls. By creating this global community, V-Day strives to empower women to find their collective voices and demand an end to the violence that affects one in three women in the U.S and around the world.

MORE ABOUT V-DAY CHICAGO WEST TOWN: V-Day Chicago West Town is a local effort within the worldwide context of the 2014 V-Day Campaign. To learn more about V-Day Chicago West Town, e-mail the organization at vdaywesttown@gmail.com. To learn more about V-Day and its campaigns visit www.vday.org.

Gorilla Tango Bucktown is a year-round performance venue featuring an 79-seat blackbox theater, rehearsal rooms, and co-producing opportunities providing artists with marketing, box office, and front of house support as well as strategic business advice for creating sustainable art.

Gorilla Tango Bucktown is conveniently located at the intersection of Western and Milwaukee in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood. Easily accessible by public transportation, GT Bucktown is steps away from the Western Blue Line stop and the #49 Western, #56 Milwaukee, and #73 Armitage bus routes. Metered street parking is available on Milwaukee Avenue. Offering shows for a wide variety of audiences, Gorilla Tango Bucktown performances are listed in full on the website with descriptions and ratings similar to movie theater screenings. GT Bucktown now offers a selection of affordable beer and wine for purchase. Consult the website for rating information, tickets, and details about how to produce at this venue. For more information, visit www.gorillatango.com.

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