Beyond The Vagina Monologues (BTVM)

"The Vagina Monologues" is an episodic play first performed in 1996 and written by Eve Ensler, who graduated Middlebury College in 1975. The play explores a multitude of experiences all centering around the vagina: sex work, consensual and nonconsensual sexual experiences, menstruation, pubic hair, gender-based slurs, reproduction, etc. from the perspectives of women with varying ages, races, and sexualities among other things. In 1998 Ensler started a non-profit movement called “V-Day” for which groups around the world perform "The Vagina Monologues" during February every year, and donate all their profits to organizations that work to end violence against women and girls. After the original V-Day on February 14, 1998, a small group of students from different colleges, including Middlebury student Malaya Rivera-Drew ‘1999, went to New York to meet with Eve Ensler with the goal of bringing a V-Day performance to their schools the following February. Rivera-Drew directed the first ever performance of "The Vagina Monologues" at Middlebury, which took place in Wilson Hall on February 14, 1999 in front of a standing room only audience. The play has been consistently performed by Middlebury students ever since. Since 2016, Middlebury students have continually written new monologues and adapted a version of the play that they refer to as "Beyond the Vagina Monologues." One of the purposes of this adapted version is to include more modern and expansive definitions of womxnhood, feminism, and femininity.