This week, justArts spoke with the directors of The Vagina Monologues, which was hosted by the Vagina Club and performed in the Shapiro Campus Center Theater on Friday and Sunday.

JustArts: How did you get involved in The Vagina Monologues?

Krissy Ford: I went to an all-girls Catholic school for high school and when I came to Brandeis I was looking for the same kind of community that I had there, a sisterhood really is what I wanted ... I saw a flyer for The Vagina Monologues and my friends told me "you should do it, you should try it." And I auditioned, fell in love with it, got really used to saying the word "vagina" a lot and then started getting in touch with Women's and Gender Studies and it was all ... uphill [from there].

Cristina Dones: My freshman year I had a really hard time acclimating and I was finding that I wasn't really bonding with [the friends I made] the way I wanted to. ... When the auditions came out for The Vagina Monologues, someone said I would be perfect for a part. So I just auditioned on a whim, just to do it, because someone said that I should. And it was honestly the only reason I didn't transfer from Brandeis, so I got a lot out of the experience. I was in it for two years-I was in it my freshman year, my sophomore year, took a break my third year, and wasn't planning on doing anything this year. But Krissy showed up ... to my job one day when I was working at the [Shapiro Campus Center] [information] booth and was like, "hey are you interested in directing?" and I was like, "oh my god, yes I am."

JA: The University does The Vagina Monologues every year, why do you think it's a significant presence on campus?

CD: Because it's so relevant still. It was created in the '90s and all the issues that are spoken about are still present in our culture today, so I think a lot of ... women attend the show once, in hopes ... of finding a place, finding a voice, finding people who have had the same experiences as them.

KF: The show I think is just a fun, entertaining experience but it's also a way of being part of a movement. Brandeis is a school that's very big on activist movements and being a part of The Vagina Monologues or going to the show is a way to be part of an activist movement here at Brandeis working to end violence against women and I think that's a huge thing here.

JA: There is obviously a lot of heavy material in the show. How did you deal with that with your actors' comfort level?

CD: Most of the rehearsals actually aren't focused on lines and blocking and things like that. It's more focused on bonding and overcoming the struggles that you might face in the show and the struggles that you might face in life.

KF: We work through all our emotions and then channel all those emotions into the parts that the women in our show have. And Cris and I do a lot of one-on-one time with the women in our cast and help them develop themselves and help them develop their characters as well.

JA: What do you hope the audience takes away from the show, if you can narrow down a take-away?

KF: I hope that audience members, if they didn't already go into the experience or go into the show appreciating vaginas, I hope that that they appreciate them and respect them more.

CD: I feel the same way and I hope that women specifically [come out of the show] respecting themselves more but also being more comfortable with themselves, being more comfortable with their vaginas, being more comfortable with their vaginas [and] as women in general. And I hope men ... leave also with that same mentality of "oh my god this entire time I've had this machismo, misogynist agenda and I really need to change the way I think."

KF: But also, for people who don't identify as women, I think that there should be some sort of solidarity there for people who have vaginas or lovers of vaginas, friends of vaginas. There should be something bonding us all together at the end of the show. And there's a line from the show: "We ... forget the vagina." There's a "lack of awe" and a "lack of reverence" and I hope when people leave the how they find that awe and they find that reverence.

-Emily Wishingrad