Atlanta Actress Brenda Bynum Celebrates 20 Years Of ‘The Vagina Monologues’
The show “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler, shown in 2014, has turned into a movement. Atlanta audiences will have a chance to see this work next week at City Winery.
Chris Pizzello / Invision/Associated Press file
It’s been over 20 years since Eve Ensler first stepped onstage with her show “The Vagina Monologues.”
In the following decades, that show has turned into a movement that sees yearly performances all over the world as well as lots of money raised for charity. Atlanta audiences will have a chance to see this work, which remains as relevant as ever, at City Winery next week.
The production features a cast of 16, including actress Brenda Bynum, led by director Rod Lindsey, who first directed the show in 2008.
“I was drawn to the show artistically,” Lindsey tells “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes, “I thought that it was moving, it was powerful, it was empowering, and a lot of people don’t realize that it’s hilariously funny. It’s a raucous show.”
“I remember thinking when I first saw it, ‘Men will never have a show like this.’ There is nothing that speaks to us the way that this show speaks to women. Men have more of a freedom to talk about what they like to talk about; everybody’s heard about ‘locker room talk.’ I didn’t spend a lot of time in the locker room in high school. But the point of the show is it started because women didn’t talk about things, and that’s the reason Eve Ensler started writing it. And I thought it was incredibly necessary for people to see this show, and if you get a chance to do it, why wouldn’t you?”
This production also presents a bit of a dynamic shift for Lindsey.
Bynum was his theater teacher at Emory University. She herself directed the show there at Emory in the late 1990s.
“It was, and remains the single most exciting night of my life in the theater,” she says. “The power in that room … everything was vibrating. There was so much release of powerful emotion and the connection between the women doing the monologues, the women in the audience, and men, it was totally overpowering and full of joy.”
“The Vagina Monologues” takes the stage at City Winery at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
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