Public discussion of female genitalia might be taboo, but an internationally known performance piece coming to Carbondale is designed to break down the walls of precarious social stigmas.

However, “The Vagina Monologues” is less performance oriented and more conversational, said co-director Emily Thompson, a graduate student in theatre performance from Rock Falls. After all, women should be able to speak freely about their own bodies, she said.

“We’re hoping to get a lot of the community involved,” Thompson said. “In the past years, it’s been more of a common, sit-down performance and now we really want to make it an event.”

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The show will be performed in April, and auditions were held Tuesday evening. Thompson said through the piece, the performers aspire to bring further awareness of gender violence and women’s rights with women who seek to empower other women. The monologues are meant to create conversations campus and community wide, across various cultures and sexes, she said.

“We want to get a legit conversation going about what’s going on with young women here in the community with older women,” Thompson said.

The piece is certainly not for the faint-at-heart. It is a clever and extremely bold piece of art that, if viewed, will provoke a multitude of responses.

“I got really involved with it when, two years ago my mom and I went to ‘The Vagina Monologues’ up at home; it caused a huge fight,” Thompson said. “She didn’t understand. She’s obviously older and from a different generation, so since then, I’ve said ‘I don’t know why we can’t just have a conversation about this.’”

Co-director Sarah Diefenbach, a graduate student in theatre costume design from Carrier Mills, has performed in productions of “The Vagina Monologues” before; however, this is the first show she has performed in since beginning at SIU.

“It was really the first thing got me involved in women’s rights,” Diefenbach said. “I really enjoyed being part of the show and I was in it two other years and directing it just felt like the perfect closing chapter here at SIU.”

Diefenbach said “Vagina Monologues” productions can be put on in various ways, created with outlandish settings and highly theatrical performances or more simplistic sets, focusing heavily on dialogue and dynamic.

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“I think being in it gave me a lot of different opportunities to see the way the piece can be performed,” Diefenbach said. “Watching it over the years gave me a lot of great ideas that people haven’t done before.”

Different students came by the McLeod Theatre during the two-hour time slot and auditioned. One such candidate was Kelsey Fortier, a freshman from Chicago studying musical theatre.

“I love the adrenaline I get when I act,” Fortier said. “Auditioning takes me to another place … I think my audition went very well, I was comfortable in the atmosphere.”

“The Vagina Monologues” will be presented April 19 at Curbside. All proceeds from the performance will go to the Women’s Center, though admission will be free for students.

Jake Saunders can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @saundersfj or by phone at 536-3311 ext. 254.