V-Day Interview with Sita Goetschius!

What does V-day stand for?

V-Day is an organization started by Eve Ensler, author of "The Vagina Monologues", and strives to stop violence against women. They do this through having sets of monologues that have either been written or edited by Eve Ensler available for anyone to organize an event around for free. The only thing that they ask for in exchange for copyrights are to follow a set of rules, including donating at least 10% of the profits to their "spotlight" cause and the rest to non- profits that benefit women.

Have any problems with admin?
The only problem we encountered was trying to find a faculty member to open up the NMU for us and supervise the event. By time we found somebody, someone else took the original date and we had to change the performance day. Otherwise, the Casa Grande administration was very supportive of the event.

What did this production bring attention to and why?
This production brings attention to violence, stereotypes, and double standards that women face. My group members and I feel that these are very pressing and important issues that should be addressed.

What was your motivation to do an event of this magnitude?
The motivation to do this large of an event came from a variety of things, including Emily and mine's passion for theatre, Eve Ensler's writing, V-Day Petaluma productions, and understanding the magnitude of the violence that occurs against women. Incidents like the ones in Lynch Creek and in Richmond also bring more awareness and attention to this issue.

How did you get other students involved?

The group thought of people who we thought would be or are interested in performing and women's rights, and from there contacted them about doing the event. It was really people who we could think of who were interested.

What did the event consist of?

The event consisted of monologues and poetry from "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer" (MMRP) and public domain sources. After about an hour of performances we had six different groups tabling with information that the audience was free to explore. The groups tabling were V-Day Petaluma, GirlTalk, The Zero Campaign, BRAVE People, and IMPACT!. Heather Hatch, Sonja Frayne, and Camille Copland also sold baked goods and split the profits between our beneficiaries and their RRR Spring Project.

Where did you guys get the idea?

As part of the assignment, we had to do something that combated or raised awareness about intolerance. All four of us felt strongly about the intolerance around the world against women and wanted to do a project that dealt with that. From there, we had a bunch of different ideas and finally decided to put on a V-Day event because we felt that it would be very effective.

How long have you been planning it?

We started working on this in March.

Was it a success and why?

I think that overall it was a success. We raised about $300 for United Against Sexual Assault of Sonoma County (UASA), BRAVE People, and the women and girls of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After the show, I had many different audience members telling me how much they really enjoyed the performances, including members of the V-Day Petaluma cast. We are the first high school V-Day Campaign in the North Bay, and I think we started something that will hopefully continue.

What parts of the community were involved?

Five of our performers were either adults or students from different high schools. Trisha Almond, the organizer for V-Day Petaluma, helped us immensely with planning this project, and almost all of the organizations tabling the event were community- based organizations.