Production History of
NECESSARY TARGETS
"A
bold and provocative theme for Ms. Ensler . . . bristles with enough
tantalizing topics to fuel a year's worth of symposiums"
-NEW YORK TIMES
"Ensler's
straightforward intensity and delicate comic relief make [her characters'
plight] absorbing and moving."
-USA TODAY
NECESSARY TARGETS was the first full length play Eve Ensler wrote
after the uproarious success of her work THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES (a
script that contains some of the testimonials of Bosnian women war refugees on
which NECESSARY TARGETS is based).
Ensler traveled to Bosnia in 1993 and personally conducted a series of
interviews with women refugees of the Yugoslavian Civil War. In this war
of ethnic cleansing, women had frequently been the targets of both murder and
organized rape campaigns in a horrifying attempt to forcibly alter the gene
pools of various ethnicities. Ensler was deeply moved by the experiences
of the women she met.
"It was their community, their holding on to love, their insane
humanity in the face of catastrophe, their staggering refusal to have or seek
revenge," Ensler explains, "that fueled me and ultimately
moved me to write this play."
While no character in NECESSARY TARGETS represents any one real life
individual, all the characters are compilations of the real life experiences
Eve Ensler learned of throughout the course of these interviews.
Early drafts of NECESSARY TARGETS received staged readings that
attracted many distinguished performers. In 1996, Meryl Streep and
Anjelica Huston read the play at a benefit performance in the United
States. Vanessa Redgrave did the same in London. Glenn Close and
Marisa Tomei starred in a reading of the play in Bosnia's Capital Sarajevo.
NECESSARY TARGETS received its first full production at the Hartford
Stage (Michael Wilson, Artistic Director; David Hawkinson, Consulting
Producer) in Hartford, Connecticut on November 23, 2001. It was directed
by Michael Wilson with the following cast:
J.S. . . . Shirley Knight
MELISSA . . . Catherine Kellner
JELENA . . . Alyssa Bresnahan
AZRA . . . Sally Parrish
NUNA . . . Maria Thayer
ZLATA . . . Diane Venora
SEADA . . . Marika Dominczyk
NECESSARY TARGETS then enjoyed its New York City premiere
Off-Broadway at the Variety Arts Theater in February of 2002 with the same
director and cast. Since that time the play has gone on to be performed
all over the world and is frequently presented as an educational tool by
colleges, universities, and women's rights groups or in conjunction with
fund-raising efforts for relief and/or refugee causes.
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