ONE Campaign
Motto	The Campaign to Make Poverty History
Formation	May 16, 2004
Type	Development Advocacy
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Location	United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, South Africa, Nigeria
Membership	2.4 million
Official languages	English
Key people	Bono (co-founder, spokesperson)
Website	ONE.org

The ONE Campaign is an international, nonpartisan, non-profit organization which aims to increase government funding for and effectiveness of international aid programs.

ONE was originally founded by a coalition of 11 non-profit humanitarian and advocacy organizations — including DATA, World Vision, Oxfam America, and Bread for the World — with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2007, ONE announced that it would be merging with DATA.

During the 2008 U.S. presidential election the organization launched a campaign, called ONE Vote '08, which was co-chaired by former U.S. Senate majority leaders Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Bill Frist (R-TN). The campaign is named after the song "One" by rock band U2, of which the campaign's co-founder Bono is a member.

Overview[link]

ONE is an organization which attempts to mobilize supporters around its issues and organize them into a lobbying force, with the goal of encouraging national leaders to fund more international development and relief programs. As a campaign to fight extreme poverty and global diseases, it supports the Millennium Development Goals.

Although its central talking points center on ending extreme poverty and fighting the AIDS pandemic, ONE supports a broad variety of international development and relief issues, including debt relief, clean water, increasing the quantity and efficiency of aid, lessening corruption in the governments of the aid-recipient countries, providing basic education for all, making trade more fair, reforming the farm bill to make it more fair for farmers in developing countries, slowing deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, and increasing the international affairs budget. ONE holds the position that increasing foreign development assistance will create a more secure world, believing that global poverty and the ideological extremism that fuels terrorism are linked.^{[citation needed]}

History[link]

ONE was founded by 11 organizations: Bread for the World, CARE, DATA, International Medical Corps, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam America, Plan USA, Save the Children U.S., World Concern, World Vision.

The official launch rally was held on May 16, 2004 at Liberty Mall in Philadelphia. About 2,000 people attended, including Bono, Dikembe Mutombo, Michael W. Smith, Richard Stearns (President of World Vision), and David Beckmann (President of Bread for the World).^[1]

In December 2004, ONE announced a $3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.^[2] Corresponding with this announcement, Mark McKinnon, an adviser to President Bush, and Mike McCurry, an adviser to the Kerry Campaign, appeared on CNN's Inside Politics with Judy Woodruff in support of ONE.^[3]

On May 22, 2007 the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria announced that it had saved 1.8 million lives since 2002, including a roughly doubling of services in the past year. ONE members had advocated for the increases to the Global Fund in both 2006 and 2007.^[4]

In June 2007, ONE launched ONE Vote '08.^[5] to mobilize American voters to engage the presidential candidates about the issues of global diseases and poverty. ONE Vote '08 seeks to have all the candidates make the fight against global poverty a key part of their national security and foreign policy platform. ONE Vote '08 is co-chaired by former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Bill Frist (R-TN). Since the launch, state-wide initiatives have been established in each of the four early primary states—Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.^[6][7][8][9] In addition, the ONE Vote initiative has produced official and unofficial endorsements from presidential candidates John Edwards and Bill Richardson.^[10][11]

In 2008, ONE merged with DATA. The two organizations are now run by CEO David Lane.^[12]

The ONE Campaign is a member of the Global Coalition Against Pneumonia and supports World Pneumonia Day on November 2, 2009.

Methods[link]

ONE uses a number of highly visible methods to reach out to the general public, promote its message, encourage action and raise funds.

Celebrity spokespeople are used to speak to the media and undertake trips abroad televised visits to areas suffering from poverty in order to illustrate the issues ONE is attempting to solve. ONE also uses its celebrity supporters for video ads which are released on YouTube.

ONE is a largely Internet-based campaign and therefore has multiple online communities throughout cyberspace. As well as using YouTube, ONE has a significant presence on MySpace, Yahoo! Groups, and Flickr,^[13] and uses Facebook for its campus organizing.^[14]

ONE also has field organizers around the United States to support grassroots mobilization and advocacy. The field staff works with more than 200 local ONE groups that sponsor educational events, organize community awareness events, and lobby their Members of Congress.

Supporters are encouraged to sign ONE's declaration, encourage their family, friends and community to join and lobby their political representatives.^[15]

Controversy[link]

ONE has been criticized^[16] for its response to a book by African economist Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa,^[17] which was published in January 2009. Moyo accused ONE of mischaracterizing her views. She says that she is against only government aid, not "their kind of aid".^[18] However, ONE argues that governmental development assistance "plays a critical role in the fight against extreme poverty and disease".^[19] In June 2009 Dambisa Moyo told former U.S. presidential Republican speech writer Peter Robinson during a Hoover Institute sponsored Uncommon Knowledge interview that "the harshest thing that has happened [in terms of responses to her 2009 book Dead Aid], Bono's and Bob Geldof's organization, called One, who I had tried to have a number of meetings with before the book came out, about what the theses of the book were, launched a very vitriolic attack against me. To the point that they were calling organizations ahead of my meetings and media appointments and sent a letter to African NGO's claiming, basically, painting me as a genocidal maniac trying to kill African babies. In other words, trying to get Africans to be against me. To me, that was not really fostering dialogue."^[20]

In September 2010, it was reported that the foundation used only 1.2% of their donations for charitable causes, and that the majority went on salaries.^[21]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site

Zach Braff
Braff at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival Vanity Fair party
Born	Zachary I. Braff (1975-04-06) April 6, 1975 (age 37) South Orange, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, director, screenwriter, producer
Years active	1993–present
Website
Zach Braff on Facebook

Zachary I. "Zach" Braff^[1] (born April 6, 1975) is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, comedian, and director. Braff first became known in 2001 for his role as Dr. John Dorian on the television series Scrubs, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award and three Golden Globe Awards.

In 2004, Braff made his directorial debut with Garden State. Braff returned to his home state New Jersey to shoot the film, which was produced for $2.5 million. The film made over $35 million at the box office and was praised by critics.^[2] Braff wrote the film, starred in it, and compiled the soundtrack record. He won numerous awards for his directing work, and also won the Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album in 2005.

Early life[link]

Braff was born in South Orange, New Jersey. His mother, Anne Brodzinsky (born Anne Hutchinson Maynard), is a clinical psychologist, and his father, Harold Irwin "Hal" Braff, is a trial attorney and sociology professor.^[3] His parents divorced and re-married others during Braff's childhood.^[4][5][6] One of his siblings, Joshua, is an author. Braff's father was born into a Jewish family, and Braff's mother, originally a Protestant, converted to Judaism before marrying his father^[7][8] (through his mother's New England ancestors, Braff is a distant cousin of politician Mitt Romney).^[9][10] Braff was raised in Conservative Judaism, and has said that he is "not a huge organized religion guy".^[11][12][13]

He has wanted to be a filmmaker since his early childhood, and has described it as his "life dream."^[14]

Braff was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder at age ten.^[15] He graduated from Columbia High School, in Maplewood, New Jersey, where he worked in the school's television station along with classmate and singer/actress Lauryn Hill.

As a child, Zach Braff also attended Stagedoor Manor, a performing arts "training center" for youth actors and Triple Threats ages 10–18. He fondly remembers his time there, as it was where he won an acting award and had his first kiss. Stagedoor is also where Braff met Josh Charles, with whom he is still friends, and he knows many other SDM alums, including Natalie Portman, Mandy Moore, and Joshua Radin.^[16]

Career[link]

Braff began his career doing Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Macbeth (as Malcolm) at New York City's Public Theater,^[14] and also appeared in Woody Allen's 1993 film Manhattan Murder Mystery. Braff was briefly on the Disney program The Baby-sitters Club in an episode, "Dawn Saves the Trees."

Breakthrough role[link]

Braff played John "J.D." Dorian on the medical comedy TV series Scrubs which debuted in 2001. The role was Braff's first major role in a television show. Braff was nominated for three Golden Globes and an Emmy^[17] for his work on the show. Braff directed several episodes of Scrubs, including its one-hundredth, "My Way Home". For the show's ninth season, Braff was a cast member for the first six episodes and also served as one of the executive producers.^[18]

As director[link]

Braff directed several episodes of Scrubs. Braff wrote, directed, produced, and starred in 2004's Garden State, which was filmed in his home state New Jersey, in various towns such as South Orange, Cranford, Maplewood and Tenafly. Producers were initially reluctant to finance the film, which Braff wrote in six months.^[19] In February 2005, he won a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for a Motion Picture for the Garden State soundtrack,^[20] on which he also served as the compilation producer.

Braff has directed several music videos: Gavin DeGraw's "Chariot",^[21] Joshua Radin's "Closer" and "I'd Rather Be With You", Cary Brothers' "Ride", and Lazlo Bane's "Superman", the theme song from Scrubs. His music production has resulted in newfound success for some of the artists featured on his film soundtracks, such as The Shins, who were prominently featured on the Garden State soundtrack and the Scrubs soundtrack, resulting in the expression the "Zach Braff effect."^[22][23]

Other roles[link]

Braff at the 2010 premiere of Shrek Forever After.

Along with many Scrubs cast members, Braff has a small role playing himself in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie.

Braff has done voice acting, providing a voice for the title character in the Disney animated film Chicken Little (2005), as well as being credited for voice acting in the video game Kingdom Hearts II. Braff has also done voice overs for commercials, including a PUR water campaign, Wendy's TV commercials in 2007 and 2008,^[24] and Cottonelle commercials, in which he portrayed a puppy.^{[citation needed]}

In 2005, Braff was featured on Punk'd when he was tricked into chasing a supposed vandal who appeared to be spray-painting his brand new Porsche. He then proceeded to hurl expletives at the young boy until Ashton Kutcher, the show's host, appeared.^[25] The episode aired March 20, 2005.^[26] Braff has also made a couple of guest appearances on the show Arrested Development as Phillip Litt, a parody of Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis.

Braff was in talks to star in the film Fletch Won and had signed on to play the role eventually played by Dane Cook in Mr. Brooks,^[27] but dropped out of both roles to work on Open Hearts, which he adapted from a Danish film and will direct. He has also co-written a film version of Andrew Henry's Meadow, a children's book, with his brother, and was scheduled to direct one of the segments for the film New York, I Love You.^[28]

In July 2009, he signed on as an executive producer for the documentary Heart of Stone to "help spread the word about it."^[29]

Braff starred in the romantic drama The Last Kiss, which opened on September 15, 2006. Braff tweaked several parts of Paul Haggis' script for the film, as he wanted the script to be as "real as possible" and "really courageous" regarding its subject matter.^[30] As with Garden State, Braff was involved with the film's soundtrack, serving as executive producer.^[20][30] The film's director, Tony Goldwyn, compared Braff to a younger version of Tim Allen, describing Braff as "incredibly accessible to an audience... a real guy, an everyman."^[4]

In 2007, Braff starred in the film The Ex (2007), which he has described as a "silly comedy."^[31]

Braff stars in the Canadian indie film The High Cost of Living with Quebec actress Isabelle Blais in 2010.^[32] Directed by Deborah Chow, the film was shot in Montreal and principal photography wrapped on March 9, 2010. Braff stated he enjoyed filming in the country in which The Last Kiss was also shot.^[33] The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and was also shown at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Theatre[link]

Braff has spoken of his love of theater and his desire to return to stage acting in New York City, eight years after playing Sebastian in the Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night.^[34] In mid-2010, Braff took a lead role in Trust, at the Second Stage Theatre, a contemporary Off-Broadway theater company. The play ran from July 23 to September 12, extending its scheduled run by one week.^[35] Braff wrote on Facebook that he was 'Having so much fun doing "Trust"'. The play co-starred Sutton Foster, Ari Graynor and Bobby Cannavale, was written by Paul Weitz and directed by Peter DuBois. Braff played Henry, a wealthy married man who "looks to find something real in the most unlikely of places".^[36]

In early 2011, Braff announced that he had written a play to be performed at the Second Stage Theatre in mid-2011. The play, All New People, is set on Long Beach Island and centers on Charlie, a 35-year-old from Braff's home state New Jersey. The play was directed by Peter DuBois, who directed Braff in Trust the previous year.^[37] When announcing the play on Facebook, Braff wrote that 'one of my dreams comes true'.^[38] In 2012, Braff moved the play on tour to the UK, playing in Manchester at the Manchester Opera House between 8–11 February, Glasgow at the King's Theatre between 14–18 February, and finally in London for 10 weeks at the Duke of York's Theatre from 22 February.^[39]

Future show business projects[link]

Braff at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival

Braff's next directorial project is the upcoming, film Open Hearts, a remake of a 2002 Danish film Elsker dig for evigt (Love You Forever), which was directed by Susanne Bier. The film will focus on a woman, shocked by her fiance's paralysis in a car crash. She ends up having an affair with her husband's doctor, whose wife caused the original accident. The original film starred Mads Mikkelsen, Sonja Richter, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, and Paprika Steen. The cast for Braff's remake have not been revealed yet. It was first revealed that Zach Braff was planning to remake Open Hearts in 2006,^[40] at the same time Braff's film The Last Kiss was being released. The film will be produced by Paramount Pictures.

In July 2009, Braff announced via Facebook that he is working on the script of a film to be called Swingles,^[41] which he will direct and star in alongside Cameron Diaz.^[42]

Other pursuits[link]

In 2009, Zach Braff opened up the restaurant Mermaid Oyster Bar in New York City with chef and high school friend, Laurence Edelman.^[43]

Personal life[link]

Braff's brother is author Joshua Braff; his stepsister is Jessica Kirson, a New York stand-up comedian.^[44]

Braff has reportedly dated fellow actors Mandy Moore^[45] and Shiri Appleby.^[46] Braff is best friends with his Scrubs co-star Donald Faison.^[47]

In November 2008, Braff earned his pilot's license flying a Cirrus SR20.^[48]

Filmography[link]

Actor[link]

Director[link]

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zach Braff

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Zach Braff

• Zach Braff at the Internet Movie Database
• Zach Braff at AllRovi
• Zach Braff on Myspace
• Zach Braff at Emmys.com

Rosario Dawson
Dawson in 2009
Born	(1979-05-09) May 9, 1979 (age 33) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, singer, writer
Years active	1995–present
Website
Official website

Rosario Isabel Dawson^[1] (born May 9, 1979) is an American actress, singer, and writer. She has appeared in films such as Kids, Men in Black II, 25th Hour, Sin City, Clerks II, Rent, Death Proof, The Rundown, Eagle Eye, Alexander, Seven Pounds, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and Unstoppable.

Early life[link]

Dawson was born in New York City. Her mother, Isabel Celeste, is a writer and singer who is of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban descent. Isabel was seventeen years old when Rosario was born; she never married Rosario's biological father, Patrick C. Harris.^[2][3] When Isabel was eighteen, she married Greg Dawson, a construction worker, who "loved and raised Rosario as his own daughter"^[2] (Dawson has stated that "He's always been my dad").^[3] Dawson has a brother, Clay, who is four years younger. Her parents divorced in 2006.

At the age of 21, Isabel moved the family into an abandoned building squat on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where she and her husband renovated an apartment and installed the plumbing and electrical wiring for the building, creating affordable housing where Rosario and Clay would grow up. Dawson has cited this part of her history when explaining how she learned that "If you wanted something better, you had to do it yourself."^[4][5]

Career[link]

As a child, Dawson made a brief appearance on Sesame Street. At the age of 15, she was subsequently discovered on her front porch step by photographer Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, where Harmony lauded her as being perfect for a part he had written in his screenplay that would become the controversial 1995 film Kids. She went on to star in varied roles, ranging from independent films to big budget blockbusters including Rent, He Got Game, and Men in Black II.^{[6][7][8][9][10]}

In 1999, Dawson teamed up with Prince for the re-release of his 1980s hit "1999."^[11] The new remixed version featured the actress in an introductory voice over, offering commentary on the state of the world in the year before the new millennium.^[12] The same year, she appeared in The Chemical Brothers' video for the song "Out of Control" from the album Surrender.^[13] She is also featured on the track "She Lives In My Lap" from the second disc of the OutKast album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, in which she speaks the intro and a brief interlude towards the end. In 2001, she appeared in the movie, Josie and the Pussycats.

Dawson researching her role in Eagle Eye, 2007

Dawson starred as Naturelle Rivera, the love interest of a convicted drug dealer played by Edward Norton, in the 2002 Spike Lee film drama, 25th Hour. In the 2004 Oliver Stone film Alexander, she played the bride of Alexander the Great. In the autumn of 2005, Dawson appeared on stage as Julia in the Public Theater's "Shakespeare in the Park" revival of Two Gentlemen of Verona.^[14] It was her first appearance on stage. “That park is so beautiful,” she said of New York's Central Park.^[15]

In the film adaptation of the popular musical Rent in 2005, she played the exotic dancer Mimi Marquez, replacing Daphne Rubin-Vega, who was pregnant and unable to play the part. She also appeared in the adaptation of the graphic novel Sin City, co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, portraying Gail, a prostitute-dominatrix. Also in that year, she appeared in a graphically violent scene in the Rob Zombie film The Devil's Rejects. Though the scene was cut from the final film, it is available in the deleted scenes on the DVD release.

Dawson at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

She starred as Becky in 2006's Clerks II, and mentioned in Back to the Well, the making-of documentary, that the donkey show sequence was what made her decide to take the role. In May of the same year, Dawson, an avid comic book fan, co-created the comic book miniseries Occult Crimes Taskforce.^[16] She was at the 2007 Comic-Con to promote the comic. She co-starred with former Rent alum Tracie Thoms in the Quentin Tarantino throwback movie Death Proof in 2007, part of the Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature Grind House. She teamed up with friend Talia Lugacy, whom she met at the Lee Strasberg Academy, to produce and star in Descent.^[17] On July 7, 2007, Dawson presented at the American leg of Live Earth.

In 2008, Dawson starred with Will Smith in Seven Pounds and in the Steven Spielberg produced Eagle Eye. Beginning in August, she starred in Gemini Division, an online TV series. In the computer animated series Afterworld she voiced the character Officer Delondre Baines.^[18] On January 17, 2009, Dawson hosted Saturday Night Live. Later in the year, she voiced Artemis of Bana-Mighdall in the animated film Wonder Woman.^[19]

In 2009, Dawson performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.^[20]

In 2009, Dawson also voiced the character of Velvet Von Black in Rob Zombie's animated feature, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto.

For the Kasabian album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, she is featured singing on the track "West Ryder Silver Bullet".

In 2010, she starred in the movies Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, as Persephone, and Unstoppable, as railway yardmaster Connie.

Personal life[link]

Dawson dated former Sex and the City star Jason Lewis for two years. They lived together in Los Angeles until they separated in November 2006.^[21].

Dawson at the 2008 Willow Awards

Dawson is involved with the Lower East Side Girls Club^[22][23] and supports other charities such as environmental group Global Cool, the ONE Campaign, Oxfam, Amnesty International, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Stay Close.org (a poster and public service ad campaign for PFLAG where she is featured with her uncle Frank Jump),^[24] International Rescue Committee, and Voto Latino,^[25][25][26] and she participated in the Vagina Monologues. She is on the V-Day Board. She attended both the Democratic National Convention (in 2008) as well as the Republican National Convention (also in 2008). In October 2008, Dawson became a spokeswoman for TripAdvisor.com’s philanthropy program, More Than Footprints,^[27][28] involving Conservation International, Doctors Without Borders, National Geographic Society, The Nature Conservancy, and Save The Children. Also in October 2008, she lent her voice to the RESPECT! Campaign,^[29] a movement aimed at preventing domestic violence. She recorded a voice message for the Giverespect.org Web site stressing the importance of respect in helping stop domestic violence.

Dawson is a supporter of Arsenal Football Club. On February 16, 2011, before an Arsenal FC vs FC Barcelona UEFA Champions League match, Dawson wrote on her official Twitter account: "I'll be happy with either team winning cuz I love them both but yes I'm a Gunner first & foremost sooooo #gooooArsenal."^[30]

Filmography[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

• ALMA Awards

• 2006, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture (Rent) Nominated

• American Black Film Festival

• 2004, Rising Star Award Won

• Black Movie Awards

• 2006, Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Rent) Nominated

• Black Reel Awards

• 2006, Best Actress (Rent) Nominated
• 2006, Best Ensemble (Rent) Nominated
• 2006, Best Supporting Actress (Sin City) Nominated
• 2003, Best Supporting Actress (25th Hour) Nominated
• 2000, Best Actress (Light It Up) Nominated

• Broadcast Film Critics

• 2006, Best Song (Rent) "Seasons of Love" Nominated

• Image Awards

• 2009, Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture (Seven Pounds) Won
• 2006, Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture (Rent) Nominated
• 2000, Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture (Light It Up) Nominated

• MTV Movie Awards

• 2006, Best Kiss (Sin City) Nominated

• Satellite Awards

• 2006, Best Supporting Actress Comedy or Musical (Rent) Won

• Spike Video Game Awards

• 2006, Gamer's Choice: Breakthrough Performance Won

• Streamy Awards

• 2009, Best Female Actor in a Dramatic Web Series Won

• Teen Choice Awards

• 2001, Film – Choice Breakout Performance (Josie and the Pussycats) Nominated
• 2010, Choice Movie Actress: Fantasy (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief) Nominated^[31]

See also[link]

	Puerto Rico portal
	Biography portal

• List of famous Puerto Ricans

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rosario Dawson

• Official website
• Rosario Dawson at the Internet Movie Database
• Rosario Dawson at the Internet Off-Broadway Database

Eve Ensler
Ensler in March 2011
Born	(1953-05-25) May 25, 1953 (age 59) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Playwright, writer, performer, activist

Eve Ensler (born May 25, 1953) is an American playwright, performer, feminist and activist, best known for her play The Vagina Monologues.^[1][2]

Personal life[link]

Ensler was born in New York, the daughter of a housewife and an executive.^[3] Her father was Jewish and her mother was from a Christian background.^[4] She reports having been physically and sexually abused by her father when she was a child.^[4][5] She graduated from Middlebury College in 1975. She married Richard McDermott in 1978, and divorced him 10 years later. She is the adoptive mother of actor Dylan McDermott, whom she adopted when he was 15 and she was 23.^[6]

Ensler wrote an article in The Guardian (June 12, 2010) in which she mentioned that she is receiving treatment for uterine cancer.^[7]

[edit] The Vagina Monologues

The Vagina Monologues was written in 1996. First performed in the basement of the Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village, The Vagina Monologues has been translated into 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Celebrities who have starred in the play include: Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Idina Menzel, Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon, Marin Mazzie, Cyndi Lauper, Mary Testa and Oprah Winfrey. Ensler was awarded the Obie Award in 1996 for ‘Best New Play’ and in 1999 was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship Award in Playwriting. She has also received the Berrilla-Kerr Award for Playwriting, the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, and the Jury Award for Theater at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.^[8]

Recent works[link]

Ensler in June 2010

Ensler has been involved in several films, including V-Day's Until The Violence Stops and the PBS documentary What I Want My Words To Do To You, and has appeared on television on Real Time with Bill Maher (August 26, 2005) and Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry (August 12, 2005).

From October 2005 to April 2006, Ensler toured twenty North American cities with her play The Good Body, following engagements on Broadway, at ACT in San Francisco, and in a workshop production at Seattle Repertory Theatre. The Good Body addresses why women of many cultures and backgrounds perceive pressure to change the way they look in order to be accepted in the eyes of society.

Ensler's play, The Treatment debuted on September 12, 2006, at the Culture Project in New York City. This play explores the moral and psychological trauma that are the result of participation in military conflicts. It stars her adoptive son, Dylan McDermott.

In 2006, Eve released her first major work written exclusively for the printed page. Insecure At Last: Losing It In Our Security-Obsessed World (Villard; Hardcover; October 3, 2006). In Insecure At Last, Ensler explores how people live today, the measures people take to keep themselves safe, and how people can experience freedom by letting go of the deceptive notion of "protection." In 2006 Eve also co-edited A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer, an anthology of writings about violence against women.

Eve's newest work, I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around The World, a collection of original monologues about and for girls that aims inspire girls to take agency over their minds, bodies, hearts and curiosities, was released February 2010 in book form by Random House and made The New York Times Best Seller list. The book was workshopped in July 2010 at New York Stage and Film and Vassar College, moving towards an Off-Broadway production. The theatrical production of the piece, titled Emotional Creature, will have its United States debut at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in Berkeley, CA in June 2012. In February 2012, The South African production of Emotional Creature was nominated for a 2011 Naledi Theatre Award for Best Ensemble Production/Cutting Edge Production.

Activism[link]

Ensler is a prominent activist addressing issues of violence against women and girls. In 1998, her experience performing The Vagina Monologues inspired her to create V-Day, a global activist movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day raises funds and awareness through annual benefit productions of The Vagina Monologues. In 2010, more than 5,400 V-Day events took place in over 1,500 locations in the U.S. and around the world. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $80 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 12,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. These safe houses provide women sanctuary from abuse, female genital mutilation and honor killing.^[9] The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.

In February 2004, Ensler, alongside Sally Field, Jane Fonda and Christine Lahti, protested to have the Mexican government re-investigate the slayings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juárez, a city along the Texas border.

Ensler is a very close supporter of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) and went to Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban. She supports Afghan women and has organized many programs for them. She organized one event named the "Afghani Women's Summit For Democracy".

Ensler has led a writing group since 1998 at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, which was portrayed in What I Want My Words To Do To You.^[10] Judy Clark, Kathy Boudin, and Pamela Smart were among the writing group's participants featured in the film.

In 2011, V-Day and the Fondation Panzi (DRC), with support from UNICEF, opened the City of Joy, a new community for women survivors of gender violence in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). City of Joy will provide up to 180 Congolese women a year with an opportunity to benefit from group therapy; self-defense training; comprehensive sexuality education (covering HIV/AIDS, family planning); economic empowerment; storytelling; dance; theater; ecology and horticulture. Created from their vision, Congolese women run, operate and direct City of Joy themselves. The City of Joy celebrated its first graduating class in February 2012.

Awards and honors[link]

She has received numerous awards for her artistic and anti-violence work.

Awards and Honors (Select):

• Obie Award for THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, 1997
• Guggenheim Fellowship Award in Playwriting, 1999
• Berrilla-Kerr Award for Playwriting, 2000
• Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, 2001
• Amnesty International Media Spotlight Award for Leadership, 2002
• The Matrix Award, 2002
• Jury Award for Theater at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, 2002
• Lion of Judah by the United Jewish Communities, 2002.^[11][12]
• Sundance Film Festival’s" Freedom Of Expression" award for WHAT I WANT MY WORDS TO DO TO YOU, 2003
• Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from her alma mater, Middlebury College, 2003
• NETC Theatre Award, a regional Boston theatre award, 2004
• NOW Award from the Intrepid Award Gala, 2004
• The Civil Revolutionary Award from Miami Dade College, 2004
• Award for International Peace Efforts from Cardozo Law School, 2004
• The Avon Award, 2005
• The Sandra Day O’Connor Award from The Arizona Foundation for Women in Phoenix, 2005
• Honorary Doctor of Human Letters from Manhattanville College, 2005
• Honorary Doctor of Communications from Simmons College, 2006
• City of New York Proclamation in honor of founding and her work for V-Day, 2006
• OK2BU Humanitarian Award In recognition of outstanding contributions to the LGBT community, 2006

• Ms. Ensler has also been honored for her effort to end violence against women and girls by such organizations as Planned Parenthood (2004, 2006), The Women’s Prison Association (2004), Sahkti (2004), and several LGBT centers (2004,2006).

• In 2011, Eve Ensler was awarded the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award, which recognizes an individual from the theater community who has made a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of humanitarian, social service, or charitable organizations. ^[13].

Criticism[link]

The Vagina Monologues includes a section entitled "The Little Coochie Snorcher that Could". This portion of the play, as originally performed, has been criticized for including a scene where a 13-year-old girl is given a drink by a 24-year-old woman who then has sex with her.^[14] At the conclusion of the segment, the narrator (the grown-up thirteen year old girl) fondly reminisces about the event, claiming that it helped to nurture her and help her grow as a woman, and included the line, "If it was rape, it was good rape".

The segment received criticism not only for depicting the event as a "good rape", but also for forming a double standard, as elsewhere in the play, male-on-female rape is depicted as not only inexcusable but the ultimate act of violence against women. The scene was modified in later performances; the young girl's age was changed to 16, and the "good rape" line was omitted.

Feminist Camille Paglia criticised Ensler's "obsession with male evil", suggesting that this combined with her "claimed history of physical abuse and mental breakdowns" made her "the new Andrea Dworkin".^[15] Bernard Goldberg listed Ensler at #96 in his 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37).^[16]

Selected works[link]

Plays

• Conviction
• Lemonade
• The Depot
• Floating Rhoda and the Glue Man
• Extraordinary Measures
• The Vagina Monologues
• The Good Body
• Necessary Targets
• The Treatment

Books

• I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World
• Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security Obsessed World
• The Good Body
• Necessary Targets
• Vagina Warriors
• A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer

Films

• Until the Violence Stops (2004)
• What I Want My Words to Do to You: Voices From Inside a Women's Maximum Security Prison (2003)
• The Vagina Monologues (2002)
• Fear No More: Stop Violence Against Women (2002) - interviewee

References[link]

External links[link]

• Eve Ensler biography
• Eve Ensler at the Internet Movie Database
• Eve Ensler's Speech on October 7, 2006 in Los Angeles (Audio)
• Eve Ensler: "Afghanistan is everywhere"
• Pamela Grossman (April 19, 2000). "Down the Vagina Trail" Salon.com
• TED Talks: Eve Ensler on happiness in body and soul at TED in 2004 (excerpt from her play "The Vagina Monologues.")
• TED Talks: Eve Ensler on security at TED
• TED Talks: Eve Ensler: suddenly, my body at TED in 2010.
• Eve Ensler - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org, October 2006
• TIME magazine: "The Vagina Dialogue" Eve Ensler Q&A
• Mother Jones: Eve Ensler on "good" bodies and bad politics
• Eve Ensler talks about her latest book Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed World October 10, 2006 (video)
• An article written by Ensler about Dr. Denis Mukwege Glamour magazine, September 2007
• "Eve Ensler". Democracy Now!. http://www.democracynow.org/tags/eve_ensler. Retrieved 2010-08-27. 
• The Vagina Monologues Turns Ten, The Times, April 15, 2008
• Victory Over Violence - For Women and Men - Alternet April 25, 2008
• V To The 10th! - Fundraising Success - January, 01, 2008
• Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin - September 8, 2008
• Ensler, Eve (October 11, 2006). Interview with Tavis Smiley. The Tavis Smiley Show. KCET. Los Angeles. http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200610/20061011_ensler.html. Retrieved 2010-09-02. 
• Ensler, Eve (February 12, 2010). Interview with Tavis Smiley. The Tavis Smiley Show. KCET. Los Angeles. http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/201002/20100212_ensler.html. Retrieved 2010-09-02. 
• Eve Ensler Marks Fifth Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with New Play - video report by Democracy Now!
• Eve Ensler on Twitter