Writer’s Block: The curtain’s up for women’s issues on campus

For a few hours on Friday and Saturday night, actors will paint the brightest spectrum of women’s issues at Boston University. From relationships to rape, love to loss, body image to societal image, liposuction to female genital mutilation and childhood innocence to innocence shattered, the actors of Athena’s Players do not shirk from controversy. From comedy to tragedy, the metaphysical to the mundane, the past to the present, they have addressed it all.

Established in 1999 by a budding thespian in the College of Communications, Athena’s Players became the first student-acting group to bring The Vagina Monologues and the concept of ‘V-Day’ to Boston University.

Having seen the flyers for their upcoming series of one-act plays, which opens this Friday at 8 p.m. in Morse Auditorium, I spent a very rainy Saturday afternoon sitting in the palatial lobby of 10 Buick St. chatting with two very inspirational and dedicated Athena’s Player’s officers. For an hour, as the wind howled in the background, the rain pounded on the palace windows and I sank deeper and deeper into the velvety opulence of our couch listening to Kate Cuca, Athena Player’s calm, eloquent president who moonlights as their very harried, slightly overworked director. She proves that although the Boston University administrators may bury their heads in the sand, cover its ears or turn away when it comes to campus rape prevention and the potential for a Boston University rape crisis center, there are certain group leaders on campus, like Cuca, who feel monogrammed white and red rape whistles and blue lights ‘just aren’t cutting it.’

Certainly, Athena’s Players are unconventional when it comes to activism. Unlike other dedicated groups on campus, they are not out in Marsh Chapel Plaza waving signs and shouting, nor do they circulate petitions and write letters. Instead, for these actors, activism and the promotion of women’s issues coexist alongside stage makeup, costumes, bright lights and a generous bite from the proverbial ‘acting bug.’ And every February, 60 to 100 Athena’s Players stage The Vagina Monologues at BU as part of a nationwide collaboration to bring ‘V-Day’ and The Vagina Monologues to college campuses across the country.

In exchange for updated scripts, mission statements and press releases, Athena’s Players promise to donate 100 percent of the profits from their performances of The Vagina Monologues to both national and local women’s causes. A percentage of the money is given back to the ‘V-Day’ organization, who in turn uses the money for women’s rights activism across the globe, and a percentage of the money is allocated by the Athena’s Players to their own worthwhile cause.

And for Athena’s Player’s, a most worthwhile cause is the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center located in Cambridge. Over the past few years, with several very successful renditions of The Vagina Monologues, Athena’s Players have made many generous contributions to BARCC.

Despite the obvious fact that every month is ‘women’s month’ at Boston University with Valori Sherer’s retelling of her personal experiences as a rape victim during last Thursday’s Take Back the Night Rally, to the emotionally charged t-shirts brightly crisscrossing across Marsh Chapel Plaza, to Athena’s Player’s weekend of one-act plays for many of these groups, November has been the month to voice an entire gamut of issues. And, for groups like Athena’s Players, to launch a year-long fundraising campaign for rape prevention.

Admittedly, actors do not seem the people to whom to look for activism, though actors are indeed a very different breed of people. Sure ‘pop-tart’ Brittany Spears will take a few pictures with underprivileged children, Michael Jackson and Liz Taylor support AIDS research and Bono is the world’s watchdog on third-world debt. But on the whole, celebrities and the general public are more wrapped up in just how big Jo-Lo’s pink diamond is, what exactly Christina Aguilera has pierced and whether or not Winona Ryder really did steal wool pants from Saks.

Maybe it is the humility accompanying their small theater group at a very large school. Or maybe it is the fact that Athena’s Players is not a strict feminist group and accepts a variety of students female and male. But for members of Athena’s Players, issues such as rape, self-image and personal relationships serve as the impetus of their work, the beneficiary of their talents and the bedrock of their dedication.

Athena’s Players have worked in conjunction with the women’s center on campus and in the process they’ve done a lot of wading through BU bureaucracy. Although they are not a strictly feminist group, and instead aim to bring offbeat, thought provoking acting to campus, the group does join campus groups like FEMME and the women’s center in their hopes for a rape crisis center for Boston University. They would even settle for something as small as having BARCC representatives available on campus.

While Kate Cuca and her Athena’s Players may not billow winds of change around the heads of Boston University administrators in Friday and Saturday’s Athenastock performances, the lights will still go low, the curtain will rise and the show will go on. And in a very small, yet very significant way, with every cent of Friday and Saturday night’s proceeds plowed back into their fundraising for BARCC, Boston University’s Athena’s Players will prove themselves just as strong-willed, wise and dedicated as their goddess namesake.