V-Day Toronto 2007

Hey my peeps,

Happy New Year to you all. I hope that you are all well, surviving the cold, and had an amazing holiday season. I am having a wonderful, exhausting, overwhelming and creatively exhilarating time as the Producer/Director of V-Day Toronto '07. I thought I'd drop you all a line about THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, which goes on sale in 7 hours! There are two shows this year, on March 3rd & 4th. The first performance is a Community Outreach show at the Workman Theatre (at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health), which I elected to do to make the show more accessible to students and lower income women. The second show, our main fundraiser, will be a seated performance at the Phoenix Concert Theatre.

As beneficiary of this year's production I have chosen the Anduhyaun Residence, a shelter for abused Native women and their children. 10% of proceeds will also go to the 2007 Spotlight - Reclaiming Peace: Women In War Zones - to benefit organizations assisting women victimized by violence in the Sudan, Iraq and the Congo. Our special guests are Canadian indie music darlings Wendy Lands, Simon Wilcox and Mia Sheard, Degrassi: The Next Generation star Lauren Collins, Rockstar:INXS finalist Tara Slone, MuchMoreMusic VJ Traci Melchor and Stargate:SG1 star Amanda Tapping. The shows will be hosted by NDP M.P. Olivia Chow and TV host & author Dr. Marla Shapiro, respectively.

There is another aspect to this year's V-Day which is very dear to my heart. The V-Day organization formulated "V-Day Men" a while back, but it's too often overlooked. V-Day Men provides the opportunity for men to have a voice in this very important issue because at the end of the day, violence against women will not stop until men stop it. Unfortunately men are depicted all-too-often as perpetrators, but they are also our husbands, fathers, brothers, boyfriends and best friends. I wanted to add an element to this year's V-Day that celebrates the wonderful men that do exist and gives them a chance to support this cause. I conceived a benefit concert of singer-songwriters - all men - as a featured event of V-Day Toronto 2007. STRIKE A CHORD... Not A Woman will be held on Saturday March 10th at the Workman Theatre. More details to come.

See what happens when you put a musician in charge of the Monologues??? You end up with a bunch of them in the cast, a concert as an auxiliary event and a show at the Phoenix! =) Tickets for the concert go on sale a week from tomorrow. TVM goes on sale at 10 a.m. today and tickets can be purchased here. I would love to have you there on what will be a very special weekend for me, my Production team and our beautiful, beautiful cast. Okay it's exactly 3:00 a.m. Lights out for me.

Keep warm,
Tanisha