“Tonight” signifies Friday, May 22.
PORT ANGELES — When “The Vagina Monologues” played in Sequim a few months ago, the shows kept selling out. Olympic Theatre Arts had to turn people away.
Now the show’s trio of actresses, Alexandria Edouart, Jennifer Sies and Maggie McDougal, are bringing it to a second stage: the Port Angeles Community Playhouse. “The Vagina Monologues” will return for encores — three of them — at 7:30 tonight and Saturday and finally at 2 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets are $10 for all shows and available in advance at Odyssey Books, 114 W. Front St. If any are remaining, they will also be sold at the door of the playhouse at 1235 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
Both Sharon DelaBarre, director of the Sequim production, and Barbara Frederick, Port Angeles Community Players’ board president, are up for this.
Olympic Theatre Arts’ calendar hasn’t room for another staging of the show.
But the playhouse does, and it can use ticket proceeds to help pay for a scheduled replacement of its 90-year-old seats.
The Olympic Theatre Arts production “got great raves,” said Frederick.
“It is a testament to how these women feel about this play that they were thrilled at the chance to do it again.”
Sies, McDougal and Edouart join a select group of actresses who have appeared in “The Vagina Monologues” since playwright Eve Ensler unleashed it on the world in 1996. Among them are Lily Tomlin, Phylicia Rashad, Cate Blanchett, Marisa Tomei, Julia Stiles, Salma Hayek, Cynthia Nixon, Julianna Margulies, Gillian Anderson, Susan Sarandon and Oprah Winfrey.
The monologues represent a wide range of viewpoints and voices, from the furious to the outrageous to the comical.
“The first thought that comes to mind when you hear the title is not humor, but this play is truly humorous,” said DelaBarre.
“Yes, it does ask us to take a look, a real look, at what it is to be a woman
. . . in a funny, insightful way.
“Granted, not all the monologues are funny. A couple do force us to look at some realities that are not pleasant,” she added.
One hope she has for the women who see this production: that they come away with a feeling of sisterhood.
“There is freedom in knowing that one is not alone in what we all may have felt, questioned, worried about or lived through,” said the director.
As for the men, well, she believes it offers insights for them too, about the complex creature called woman.
