Archive of 2009 Vagina Monologues Site Struggle

To accomodate increasing demand for tickets and seating at the annual staging of the Vagina Monologues at Cornell, the Women's Resource Center, which coordinates the event, had approached Cornell United Religious Work (CURW) to expand the venue from Anabel Taylor Hall, seating 350, which had been the home to the VM for the preceeding several years. During Fall of 2008, an agreement to host the Vagina Monologues in the Sage "Chapel" was reached and the Women's Resource Center began preparations for another anticipated sellout to take place on 7 March 2009.

Contracts for stage lighting and production assistance were made, fliers and tickets were produced, and preparations were well underway towards the agreed production.

On or about 13 February 2009, CURW approached the WRC with news that the Sage building was to be withdrawn as a venue for the performance because of the possibility for awkwardness and discomfort amongst other groups which occasionally use Sage. They offered to reinstate previous arrangements, in effect substituting a 350 seat venue for an 800 seat venue, after fliers and tickets had already been printed.

As the ticket price for the 2009 staging was $8, and it was anticipated that a sellout even in the larger venue was possible based on the high demand for tickets and early sellouts in previous years, the end result was a drop in anticipated revenue of some $3600. This revenue has been earmarked for years to support the operations of the Advocacy Center in Ithaca which offers services protecting at risk individuals against sexual and domestic violence. CURW offered $500 in recompense against this estimated shortfall. CURW also offered an alternative date for an additional performance of the Vagina Monologues, but as of 19 February 2009 this remains uncertain because of the extraordinary difficulty in assembling the very large group of people necessary for production of this work at another time, with necessary additional arrangements for production equipment and ticket sales, all of this at unnecessarily short notice.

Many members of the Cornell community were horrified at these actions, bespeaking a subordination of speech to an unspecified fear and discomfort of undisclosed "others"-- precisely the sort of censorship of voice which the Vagina Monologues so powerfully addresses.

This page will serve as an archive of correspondence and activism both in urging the Cornell Administration, through the office of the Dean of Students at Cornell, and through the CURW, which reports to the Dean of Students office.

Read the archives.. Write and insist that promises be kept!

• Letter Archive
• Contact List

-- DonBarry? - 20 Feb 2009