Student leaders and participants in "The Vagina Monologues," are optimistic about the March 19 performance date, while still awaiting official approval.
"Talks are continuing as of right now, there has been no official approval, but no indication official approval will be denied," said Dr. Linda Tredennick, the group's sponsor and acting director of the Women's and Gender Studies program.
According to Acting Academic Vice President Earl Martin, he is currently working with Tredennick and students on the University's event policy.
Three seniors are leading the performance initiative. Libby Villa, Maura Pisciotta and Ian Sullivan made the proposal to bring the monologues to campus, backed by the Women's and Gender Studies Department.
"The administration is working with us," Pisciotta said.
"They have had an open ear," Villa said.
The group held their first rehearsal, Feb. 20. The cast is comprised of 22 women, including one administrative staff member and two professors, Dr. Tredennick said.
The idea to try to bring the "Vagina Monologues," to campus after a 2002 ban by former President Robert Spitzer, S.J., began two years ago with senior Libby Villa. As a sophomore she read the "The Vagina Monologues" book and found out the performance was happening all over the world on many different college campuses.
Villa works at the YWCA clothing bank with Pisciotta. The two see the monologues as a link between the women they interact with at the YWCA and what they have the power to affect on campus.
"We see women who have had their femininity attacked and devalued," Villa said. "It has shown us what we want to teach women at Gonzaga."
Sullivan is a friend of Pisciotta and Villa who has substantial theater experience and supported the cause. His involvement is a way of getting men involved, because part of the campaign is to only cast people who identify as women in the parts.
The main reason they want to bring the Monologues to campus is to inspire conversation.
"They bring to light a conversation that is not usually had. It's people's struggles, and pushing that aside is not just," Pisciotta said.
"As a member of the community I want to do this so women feel comfortable discussing things that make them women," Villa said.
Dissenting voices on campus are present, such as those of senior Katie Infantine.
"If Gonzaga is seen to endorse the messages put forth in the Monologues, in the hope that an informed dialogue between the promoters of the play and the supporters of Catholic values will aid us in our search for truth, the fundamental conviction of the Catholic University will be undermined — the conviction that in this search for truth, we do not start entirely from neutral ground but from the revealed truth of the Incarnation, passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Infantine wrote in an e-mail.
Another issue Infantine sees in the performance is that the performance will be held during Lent, the traditional time for prayer and drawing closer to God, she wrote.
"The Vagina Monologues interrupts this holy season with dramatic representations of immoral, degrading and at time verging on pornographic depictions of femininity," Infantine wrote.
Two sources Infantine believes legitimate the rejection of the Monologues are articles written in direct response to whether Catholic Universities should allow the Monologues on campus, written by Bishop John M. D'Arcy and the Rev. Brian Shanley, president of Providence College in Rhode Island.
Dr. Jane Rinehart witnessed the 2002 campus ban on the Monologues. The "controversy," surrounding the Monologues is not the same as it was in the past, Rinehart said. Other Catholic Universities have resolved this issue.
"My sense is that students that have taken this initiative have been asked to take steps but the door hasn't been closed from the beginning," she said. "Students are not as offended or troubled by the Monologues as other parts of the University, that needs to be acknowledged."
The discomfort caused by the Monologues is in part due to concern about division among Catholics, and how it relates to the Catholic identity of the University, she said.
"I'm not afraid the way "The Vagina Monologues" takes us outside traditional Catholic teaching is a threat to those teachings," Rinehart said.
Both Sullivan and Pisciotta identify as Catholic.
For the March 19 performance, tickets will be $5, and the proceeds will go to two organizations to fund domestic abuse resources. The Monologue directors have selected Lutheran Community Services as the beneficiary of the majority of their donation.
Specifically, they hope the money will go to the Sexual Assault and Family Trauma Response Center. SAFeT offers clinical services, victim advocacy and support, and education and prevention services, according to the LCS Web site.
"We chose LCS since students on our campus are already involved as first responders for LCS, and we wanted to continue to support that," Pisciotta said.
In addition, a requirement of performing the Monologues is that 10 percent of each performance's donations go to the V-day foundation. They select a country each year to grant money to stop domestic violence. This year the country is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Villa said.
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