What do words that begin with ‘V’ have in common with the big ‘V’ word, Vagina? Violence. Victory. Victim. Vice. Vivacious. Oh, and the ‘W’ in ‘Women’ is two Vs put together.
This is the question Felicia T. Perez, director of this year’s “The Vagina Monologues,” wants people to ask themselves.
This Valentine’s Day weekend, Feb. 11-13, the ASUO Women’s Center will put on a production of the Monologues as part of an annual V-Day campaign, as schools and communities nationwide also perform and donate the play’s proceeds to nonprofit organizations fighting to end violence against women and to support women’s rights.
To 28-year-old Perez, the Monologues are about helping women reconnect with themselves and heal by celebrating the joy and creation that “V” words can bring.
“‘The Vagina Monologues’ are stories of creation,” Perez said. “You don’t have to be a woman to appreciate the vagina. It reminds us that we all came from the same place.”
Perez is from Los Angeles, but was brought to Eugene to direct this year’s production.
A teacher by profession, she boasts an extensive résumé. She got her start directing independent performance-art pieces and later did work for Highways Performance Art Space in Los Angeles.
Lately, directing has taken a back seat to Perez’s full-time job teaching high school history in Los Angeles.
Still, Perez views directing and teaching as an interconnected chain.
“Directing and theater work is all an extension of teaching. It’s all about helping people to find their voice and tell a story,” she said. “It’s no different from teaching history, which is also about storytelling anyway.”
This approach has brought renewed energy to a production that was brutally slammed last year for lacking diversity. In fact, Perez embodies the diversity this year’s cast and crew are trying to bring to the production.
“As a fully ‘out’ lesbian and as a Chicano history teacher with tattoos and a shaved head, my life has been about not having a place to call home or to feel that I belong to,” she said. “My life has been about making sure my voice is heard in connection with everyone else’s. That means that I’ve come into this production understanding how important and empowering it is to know that you have a voice and that you are
being represented.”
Instead of having auditions, cast members were selected via a nomination process, thus opening the field to people without acting experience. Perez also did not assign parts to the cast members. She said she hopes this process will ensure the voices in the Monologues are believable.
“I suggested roles according to the preferences people had expressed.
Then I passed out the scripts and left the room,” she said. “The cast decided amongst themselves whether or not to exchange parts. When I came back in, they told me what changes they had made, and we started rehearsing.”
So far, directing the Monologues has been a journey of personal
discovery for Perez.
“‘The Vagina Monologues’ has given me this amazing opportunity to completely fall in love with vaginas.”

Stefanie Loh is a freelance reporter for the Daily Emerald