UC Davis observes V-Day this year with performances of The Vagina Monologues and Vagina: OurStories, the latter being a localized take on the award-winning Monologues play.

Proceeds from all performances will go to organizations local and international that strive to end violence against women and girls, the focus of the global V-Day movement. The “V” stands for victory, Valentine and vagina.

Playwright Eve Ensler joined other women in founding V-Day on Valentine’s Day 1998, four years after Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues made its debut.

Students, staff and faculty of the School of Medicine will perform the play at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, in the auditorium of the Comprehensive Cancer Center, 45th and X streets, Sacramento.

Admission is by suggested donation of $15, with proceeds going to Sacramento’s Community Against Sexual Harm, a nonprofit organization that provides aid to women victimized who have been by sexual exploitation, sex trafficking and prostitution; and One Billion Rising, an international campaign to end violence against women and strive for gender equality.

Created from interviews with more than 200 women, The Vagina Monologues is an episodic play designed to give voice to a variety of women’s stories.

Medical school students, staff and faculty presented the Monologues for several years until 2009, then brought it back last year and “are hoping from now on it will continue to be an annual event,” said medical student Diana Ha.

Tickets may be purchased online or outside the Sacramento campus’s Education Building, 4610 X St., from noon to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, through Jan. 30, and also will be available at the door. Doors open at 7.

Vagina: OurStories, presented by the Women’s Resources and Research Center, is new every year — produced, written and performed by Davis students and community members.

“The monologues contain honest, funny, painful, inspiring and raw insights into our gendered experiences,” the WRRC states on its website.

Performances this year are scheduled at 2 and 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, and 5 p.m. Sunday, March 1. The two-hour performances will be in Veterans Memorial Theatre, 203 E. 14th St., Davis.

Tickets are on sale now at the Women’s Resources and Research Center (113 North Hall) and the LGBTQIA Resource Center (Student Community Center). The price is $7 through Feb. 20, and $10 thereafter, including at the door. Fee waivers are available upon request.

Proceeds benefit Empower Yolo, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the intervention, prevention and elimination of domestic violence, human trafficking and child abuse in Yolo County.

For more information about Vagina: OurStories (and tickets) and Empower Yolo, contact the WRRC: in person at 113 North Hall; or by telephone, (530) 752-3372, or email.

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