You walk into an audition late and you’ve got director staring right at you, making the executive decision whether or not you get to follow your passion. It’s tense.
I don’t do tense well.
Instead of politely introducing myself when all those eyes turn to me, I grin and plop down in the nearest chair. “I love vaginas and I love monologues, so I figured this was the place to be,” I say to the room. Taylor Post gives a chuckle while I cringe internally, and she tosses me a script, tells me to look through for a piece to cold read while Sarah McNally and Jamie Landtiser audition. I open to a random page.
My Angry Vagina, the top of the page reads. Next to me, Sarah is reading aloud, spitting out the plosives with a vitriol that extends to everything but pussy. I know better than to try and stand against the passion she’s got going for that piece. I flip more pages.
My Vagina Was My Village catches my eye, a piece about rape that looks like poetry. Poetry is a no-can-do for me. I’m a law student, I’ve got as much gentility and poetry in my soul as a worn boot does. I want something I can identify with, something I can sink my teeth into. Hair is out, too. I disagree with the narrator’s point about pubic hair being entirely necessary for a vagina to be lovable. The Flood is a no-go, since I’ve never been a little old lady who turned celibate in her teens. I can’t take the words “Coochie Snorcher” seriously, which means The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could is out, seeing how giggling during a monologue about transformative vaginal experiences might be a little off-putting. I’m thinking that auditioning for The Vagina Monologues was a bad choice when I find The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy.
Unlike the narrator, I’ve never been a sex worker. I haven’t worked in tax law either, but I share a few things with her. An intense love of vaginas, for example, and a habit of moaning loudly enough to make men uncomfortable. It isn’t a dark monologue. The piece has a casual, conversational feel about it that I like. Sex doesn’t have to be heavy, to be serious, to be deep eye contact and rose-scented lube and flickering candles to amazing, and that’s the spirit of The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy. I love it. I read it when my turn to monologue comes around, and I know I have that piece locked down. It’s mine.
A few days later, my friend Marissa floods my twitter with notifications. She’s gotten The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could– well deserved after working up real tears in auditions- and I’ve gotten The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy. I’ll get to have that Vagina Monologues checkmark on the college experience checklist. I’ll get to moan in the Morgan Room while my boyfriend sits in the audience, bewildered and embarrassed. I’ll get to wear leather pants.
I can’t wait.
The Vagina Monologues is being performed at Champlain College on February 13th. The performance will be held in the Morgan Room inside of Aiken Hall.
CHIVOMENGRO 
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