V-Day Montclair Presents THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, 4/5-6

On April 5^th and 6^th 2013, at 8:00pm, V-Day Montclair will present a two-night only benefit reading of Eve Ensler's award wining play The Vagina Monologues at Montclair State University's Memorial Auditorium.

Last year over 5,800 V-Day benefits were held around the world raising funds and awareness towards ending violence against women. These highly successful events raised over $5 million through performance of Eve Ensler's award-winning play, The Vagina Monologues, readings from V-Day's A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer and Any One Of Us: Words From Prison and screenings of V-Day's documentary Until The Violence Stops. Montclair State University has joined this global movement as part of the V?Day 2013 Montclair Campaign.

For the fifth year in a row V-Day Montclair will present a benefit production of The Vagina Monologues at Memorial Auditorium at Montclair State University on Friday April 5^th and Saturday April 6^th 2013 at 8:00pm on behalf of the V-Day 2013 Campaign. This benefit production is sponsored by the Montclair State University Women's Center, Postnet of Denville, NJ, and Montclair State University Parking Services.

The Vagina Monologues, which was first performed off-Broadway by Ms. Ensler, dives into the mystery, humor, pain, power, wisdom, outrage and excitement buried in women's experiences. Ms. Ensler has performed the play to great acclaim throughout the world - from Zagreb to Santa Barbara, from London to Seattle, from Jerusalem to Oklahoma City. Villard Books/Random House first published The Vagina Monologues, which includes a foreword by Gloria Steinem, in February 1998. A special edition was released in hard cover and paperback in February 2008 in honor of V-Day's ten year anniversary.

The Vagina Monologues will be performed at Memorial Auditorium at Montclair State University 1 Normal Ave. Montclair, NJ, 8:00pm on April 5^th and 6^th 2013. Tickets $15 General Admission and $10 for Students and Faculty and may be purchased by visiting: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/331195.

V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sex slavery.

Through V-Day campaigns, local volunteers and college students produce annual benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues, A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer, Any One Of Us: Words From Prison, screenings of V-Day's documentary Until The Violence Stops, and the PBS documentary What I Want My Words To Do To You, Spotlight Teach-Ins and V-Men workshops, to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within their own communities. In 2012, over 5,800 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.

Performance is just the beginning. V-Day stages large-scale benefits and produces innovative gatherings, films and campaigns to educate and change social attitudes towards violence against women including the documentary Until The Violence Stops; community briefings on the missing and murdered women of Juarez, Mexico; the December 2003 V-Day delegation trip to Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan; the Afghan Women's Summit; the March 2004 delegation to India; the Stop Rape Contest; the Indian Country Project; Love Your Tree; the June 2006 two-week festival of theater, spoken word, performance and community events UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC ; the 2008, V-Day 10-year anniversary events V TO THE TENTH at the New Orleans Arena and Louisiana Superdome; the Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource: Power To The Women and Girls of the Democratic Republic of Congo Campaign; the V-Girls Campaign, and the V-Men Campaign.

In Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, V-Day commits ongoing support to build movements and anti-violence networks. Working with local organizations, V-Day provided hard-won funding that helped open the first shelters for women in Egypt and Iraq; sponsored annual workshops and three national campaigns in Afghanistan; convened the "Confronting Violence" conference of South Asian women leaders; and donated satellite-phones to Afghan women to keep lines of communication open and action plans moving forward. V-Day was instrumental in the founding of Karama, a program working in Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon that works to build upon and strengthen efforts to end violence against women by bringing together local women's organizations and other civil society groups in collaboration, analysis and advocacy at national, regional and international levels.

The V-Day movement is growing at a rapid pace throughout the world, in 140 countries from Europe to Asia, Africa and the Caribbean and all of North America. V-Day, a non-profit corporation, distributes funds to grassroots, national and international organizations and programs that work to stop violence against women and girls. 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. In eleven years, the V-Day movement has raised over $85 million.

The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.

To learn more about V-Day Montclair, call (908) 581-9312 or e-mail the Organizer at kait_ovee@yahoo.com. To learn more about V-Day and its campaigns visit www.vday.org.

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.

V-Day Montclairis a local effort within the worldwide context of the 2013 V-Day Campaign.

According to the latest United Nations statistics, one of every three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. That's ONE BILLION mothers, daughters, sisters, partners, and friends violated. On February 14^th, 2013, we are inviting one billion women and those who love them to walk out, dance, rise up and demand an end to this violence. Activists in 182 countries have committed to take action.

Governments and politicians who have signed on to support One Billion Rising, as of January 10, 2013: Los Angeles City Council including Mayor Villaraigosa, Santa Monica City Council, West Hollywood City Council, City and Mayor of Santa Fe, Mayor of Hartford, First Lady of Nepal, City and Mayor of Manila (the City of Manila is shutting down 15 blocks for OBR events in the Philippines), Mayor of Lima (the Peruvian Mayor is meeting with the Mayors of Santiago, Chile and Montevideo, Uruguay next week to bring them on board), His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Vice President of the European Parliament Isabelle Durant (Belgium), Members of Parliament Stella Creasy (UK), Gabi Zimmer, Mikael Gustafsson (UK), Ulrike Lunacek (Austria), Michael Cashman (UK), Ana Gomes (Portugal), Sirpa Pietikainen (Finland), verbal support given and documented endorsement forthcoming from City of Atlanta.

Over 13,000 organizations around the globe have signed on, including A Call To Men, AFL-CIO, Amnesty International USA, Asmita Resource Center for Women, BCBG, Centro de Informacion y Desarrollo de la Mujer (CIDEM), European Women's Lobby, Human Rights Campaign, Isis Internacional, MTV, NOW, Vaginas Campansinas, White Ribbon Campaign, and Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE) Network.

Jane Fonda, Rosario Dawson, Donna Karan, Thandie Newton, Charlize Theron, Kerry Washington along with Yoko Ono, Jessica Alba, Connie Britton, Kate Clinton, Anne Hathaway, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lawrence, Dylan McDermott, Robert Redford, Lily Tomlin, Rosie Huntington - Whitely, Zoe Kravitz, have joined us.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

COMMIT your organization to join OBR. Email onebillionrising@vday.org with the name and URL and we'll list you as a partner.

LIKE us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/vday

FOLLOW us on Twitter: @VDAY; #1billionrising

INVITE your networks to be a part of One Billion Rising.

FILM a short video about why YOU are rising. Share the video on social media.

PLAN or JOIN an event on 2-14-13. Go to http://www.onebillionrising.org to find an event near you.

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