Pair of performances to include two new monologues; proceeds to benefit Planned Parenthood of Southern Oregon

By Meg Wade for Ashland.news

Ashland actor and director Lia Elizabeth Rose Dugal is staging a new production of “The Vagina Monologues” by V (previously Eve Ensler). Produced through Dugal’s company Cafe-Girl Thriving Artists, performances will take place at the Bellview Grange in Ashland on Friday, March 28, and Saturday, March 29. Proceeds will benefit Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon.

Dugal, who has been in four previous productions of “The Vagina Monologues” performed in the Rogue Valley, says inspiration to return to V’s work came after the 2024 election.

“When the election happened and it went the way that it did, I felt like I wanted to do something. I kind of found myself getting really quiet, and really still, and really motivated — like we have got to do something. And I had done ‘The Vagina Monologues’ as an actor many times before, and it hadn’t been performed here for some time. And I said, you know what? Let’s do this again.”

“I think our production is really highlighting the element that women have been silenced and are not going to be (silenced) anymore,” Dugal added.

The cast ranges in age, from mid 20s to early 80s, and features trans and non-binary cast members in addition to cisgender women.

The show will include two original monologues. Cast member Mary Beth Watt is contributing a piece focused on menopause, that she describes as “a companion piece to one that happens about women discussing how they started their periods,“ which she says she wrote based on her own memories as well as stories from other women.

Watt, who is also a poet and technical writer, says this is her first writing for the stage. “I am very pleased, am absolutely thrilled, to be on this production, especially now. I think it’s so important to be doing this and talking about things that affect women in their lives. I’ve told a couple of friends: I’ve been in plays before, but I have never said these words on stage. But why not? I mean, it’s freeing and it’s important and it’s experience, it’s life experience.”

The second original monologue was co-written by local performer RuRu and cast member Jules Eismann. Eismann, a Phoenix resident who identifies as non-binary and uses both she/he pronouns, shared the opening lines of their monologue with Ashland.News:

“I am who I am at all times. This somehow feels radical to say. Who else would I be?

“But I think what people expect me to be at all times is a woman. I’m not.”

Being open about their identity is a new step for Eismann.

“I’ve wanted the opportunity to express myself and I’ve been very afraid to do so, and the current political climate doesn’t make that any easier. So being able to do this in a community of people that don’t bat an eye when I when I stand up and give a monologue about how I feel like a man sometimes — it’s been healing in a lot of ways for me,” he said.

This is the acting debut for cast member Michelle Carlisle, who will be performing the monologue “They Beat the Girl Out of My Boy … Or So They Tried,” a monologue added to the original collection in 2004 for the first-ever all-transgender performance of “The Vagina Monologues.”

Carlisle described the piece as both “very current” and “universal” in the experience it portrays. “I identify so strongly with this monologue that I feel like I’m telling my own story,” she said. “Of course, some of the the circumstances are different, but the thoughts and feelings are the same.”

As a trans woman, Carlisle said, “this is an amazing opportunity for me. Because it’s exactly what I needed in order to give some expression to how I feel these days.”

Carlisle added that they think “anyone and everyone” will find the production “entertaining and interesting,” and that “a lot of people who would probably feel like it’s expansive to them, in terms of their values, in opening themselves up to a broader perspective on gender and sexuality.”

Eismann agreed, while acknowledging that “I think to a certain extent we’re going to get a lot of people that would already agree with us, but I also think that it’s just beneficial for anyone who feels alone. Anyone who feels like people don’t listen to them, that their voice isn’t heard, should come see it. I think there is something for everyone. It can be funny. It can be really dark and it can be emotional and it can also just be fun.”

Ashland resident and freelance journalist Meg Wade’s byline has appeared in Mother Earth News and other publications. Email Ashland.news at [email protected].

March 21: Corrected last name of the person delivering the “They Beat the Girl Out of My Boy … Or So They Tried” monologue.