On Saturday night, Student Committee for the Rose Art Museum held their annual Rose Art Museum party, SCRAM JAM, an opportunity for students to explore the museum. Live music, student performances, refreshments and other attractions provided entertainment and students could enjoy these attractions while checking out the artwork that the Rose has to offer.

This year, SCRAM JAM hosted two performances: The first was a Boston-based rock band, Motel Black, and the second was a collection of excerpts from “The Vagina Monologues,” which is produced by the Vagina Club at Brandeis.

The first part of SCRAM JAM was more lightly attended than anticipated, most likely due to the weather, which was unusually cold for the middle of April. Motel Black even played some of their music at the Light of Reason, right outside the museum. While the band was certainly very talented, many museum-goers did not listen for long and quickly moved inside. Nevertheless, Motel Black provided some great music, and even brought some copies of their newest album to hand out to audience members for free. There was also a food truck, as well as free cotton candy and popcorn, which were predictably popular among students.

The number of attendees grew as people piled into the Rose to prepare for the preview of “The Vagina Monologues.” This performance had a very unique setup: audience members sat at the bottom of the stairs while the actors performed their monologues on the balcony, facing down at the audience. While some actors stayed up on the balcony for their monologues, other chose to walk down the stairs and interact with the audience.

The “The Vagina Monologues” cast was undeniably talented and inspiring. Every performer brought extreme passion to their piece. My two favorite performances were a monologue about a woman who was very angry about the stigmatization of vaginas and a three-person act in which the actors answered survey questions about their vaginas. In the “Angry Vagina” monologue, the actor expressed frustrations about society’s views on vaginas, citing the products that exist to “clean up” vaginas and the pressure to make vaginas more “beautiful.” Her anger was palpable, but she also made the monologue humorous and enjoyable. In the three-person piece, the actors answered questions such as “What would your vagina wear?” and “If your vagina could talk, what would it say?” I will not give away specific answers, but I will say that the actors did a wonderful job of answering these questions.

Despite the cold weather, SCRAM JAM was a fun event and provided an opportunity to show off the Rose Art Museum to those who may not already be familiar with it. Most of all, I hope that those who came to watch the “The Vagina Monologues” previews were inspired to see the show in its entirety next weekend.

—Editor’s note:  Hannah Kressel ’20, the president of SCRAM,  is an editor for the Justice.