“My Body No Choice” at TWU

October 25, 2022 — Denton — TWU and the Theatre Division will host a staged reading of “My Body No Choice” from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, November 3 in the Multipurpose Classroom Building (MCL), room 101. The reading is free and open to the public. 

Texas Woman’s joins more than 20 theaters and universities nationwide that will stage one-night readings of the female-authored monologues about bodily autonomy, from the ability to choose—or not—to have an abortion, to the freedom to choose one's body size, to making a decision around when to end one's life. The national event, commissioned by Molly Smith of the storied Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., will play throughout the country between now and the mid-term elections. 

A stellar Texas Woman’s cast will present the monologues that include both fiction and non-fiction stories by eight of the nation’s most exciting female writers, including Lee Cataluna (Home of the Brave), Fatima Dyfan (Woolly Mammoth Theatre New Work Fellow), Lisa Loomer (Roe), Dael Orlandersmith (Stoop Stories), Sarah Ruhl (In the Next Room, or the vibrator play), Mary Hall Surface (Perseus Bayou), V (formerly Eve Ensler) (The Vagina Monologues), and “Anonymous.” 

“My Body No Choice” is Smith’s response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in July 2022. All writers generously agreed to forego royalties, making the production as accessible as possible. 

According to an interview with DC Theatre Arts, Smith said, “I knew I had to make a theater piece in response to this horrifying decision. It’s my final production as Arena’s Artistic Director, and setting it in a consciousness-raising space like women had in living rooms in the ’70s felt like the absolute right action to take. We all need to raise our consciousness together.”

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Page last updated 7:56 AM, July 30, 2024