Eve Ensler Delivers The Good Body on Broadway

By Ernio Hernandez
15 Nov 2004

Eve Ensler in The Good Body
Eve Ensler in The Good Body
Photo by Joan Marcus

From the author of Vagina Monologues comes an "inside look at the outside" as Eve Ensler focuses further on the female anatomy in her Broadway debut, The Good Body, opening Nov. 15.

Presented by Harriet Newman Leve, The Araca Group and East of Doheny, the new work written and performed by the playwright-performer Ensler began previews Oct. 22. Peter Askin directs the limited 12-week engagement to run through Jan. 16, 2005.

Inspired by the widespread popularity of her previous boundary-breaking work The Vagina Monologues, Ensler spoke with women all over the world about their bodies in her travels. From those conversations, the scribe developed her own script for The Good Body which focuses on the rest of the female anatomy, exploring the lengths women go to for a culturally accepted perception of "good."

Familiar with the solo genre, Askin has directed John Leguizamo's Sexaholix...a love story for Broadway as well as Dinner with Demons, Trumbo, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Mambo Mouth and Spic-O Rama.

The creative team for The Good Body comprises Robert Brill (set design), Susan Hilferty (costume design), Kevin Adams (lighting design), David Yan Tieghem (sound design and original music), Jill BC Du Boff (co-sound) and Wendall K. Harrington (video design).

The Good Body made its world premiere at San Francisco's American Conservartory Theatre this summer after a workshop production at Seattle Repertory Theatre.

As Ensler's Vagina Monologues inspired the creation of V-Day — a global movement to end violence against women — The Good Body has spawned Love Your Tree — "a space for women and men to go after seeing The Good Body to continue the discussion." A V-Day project sponsored by ABC Carpet & Home, audiences can visit Love Your Tree at ABC Carpet & Home (888 Broadway in New York) from Nov. 19-Jan. 16, 2005. The forum will "feature events, speakers ranging from Isabella Rossellini to Dr. Christiane Northrup MD, discussions, a curated art installation, music, dance, and resources to empower and enlighten the way we look at our bodies," according to a release.

In addition to The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler has also written the plays Lemonade, Necessary Targets, The Depot, Floating Rhoda and the Glue Man, Extraordinary Measures, Ladies and Scooncat. Her OBIE Award-winning Vagina Monologues is still produced around the world following its successful Off-Broadway run which opened on Oct. 3, 1999 and ran through Jan. 26, 2003.

Tickets to The Good Body at the Booth Theatre, 222 West 45 Street, are available by calling (212) 239-6200. For more information, visit www.thegoodbody.org.