Violence against women focus of MSU dramatic presentation next week

Contact: Kenneth Billings

STARKVILLE, Miss.--For the third consecutive year, Mississippi State faculty, staff and students will perform a well-known dramatic production about violence against women.

The Tuesday [March 23] presentation of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" and "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, A Prayer" is sponsored by the university's Richard Holmes Cultural Diversity Center.

While admission to the 7 p.m. program in Lee Hall's Bettersworth Auditorium is free, donations will be accepted for the Rape Crisis Center in Columbus.

Directed by junior biological sciences/pre-veterinary medicine major Merideth Van Wick and senior psychology major Melanie Walsh, the cast will perform "Monologues" as part of the annual "V-Day: Until the Violence Stops" observance. Both students are from Pearl.

Student Counseling Services, along with the SPECTRUM and NOW campus organizations, are V-Day co-sponsors.

Founded in the late 1990s by Ensler, an American playwright and activist, V-Day is an international movement working to end violence against women and girls by raising funds and increasing public awareness.

For more about the program, contact Shaz Akram at 662-325-2033 or sakram@saffairs.msstate.edu

For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.