THE MATERNITY MONOLOGUES Set for Dream Up Festival

The Maternity Monologues, a new play from Catherine Higgins-Moore that explores issues of birth, pregnancy and motherhood, will play the Dream Up Festival 2019 on September 5, 7, 8, 11 and 12 at Theater for the New City's Community Space, 155 First Avenue, New York City. Tickets are $15.

Today American women are 50 percent more likely to die in childbirth than their mothers.

The U.S. has the worst rate of maternal deaths in the developed world.

Suicide is a leading cause of death for women in the UK during the perinatal period.

The Maternity Monologues are more important than ever.

The show was short-listed by BBC World Service from over 1500 plays the BBC World Service's International Playwriting Competition. The all-female cast includes Alice Marks, Katie Warnusz-Steckel, Shoshana Canali and Stephanie Flanagan. The show is directed by Ms. Higgins-Moore, features choreography by Linda Kuo- Director Hawaii/NY based dance company DU, lighting by Kenneth Wills- Dear Evan Hansen/The Height of the Storm and is Stage-Managed by Margaret Baughman.

Former BBC Journalist and graduate of Trinity College Dublin and the University of Oxford's Creative Writing Masters playwright Catherine Higgins-Moore started researching birth experiences after her first daughter was born in 2013. Just as Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues sought to break down the barriers of shame around the word vagina, The Maternity Monologues demystifies the female experience of pregnancy, birth and mothering.

Using her journalistic background, Higgins-Moore interviewed women on their experiences and built on those transcripts, adding fictional scenarios to create honest and often unspoken dialogues.

At times darkly funny, sad, angry and isolated the characters discuss their changing bodies, relationships and mental and physical health as well as how they are valued by others from conception onwards.

The play offers a uniquely honest look at a brutal and beautiful universal theme.

The Maternity Monologues will play at Theater for a New City's Community Space, 155 First Avenue, NYC on September 5 at 9pm, September, 7 at 5pm, September 8 at 5pm, September 11 at 9pm and September 12 at 6:30pm. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at thematernitymonologues.brownpapertickets.com

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