“The Vagina Monologues,” Eve Ensler's masterpiece, is based on interviews with 200 women the world over about their sexuality, and with those who had experienced domestic violence in their lives. The movement to stop the violence and degradation, of rape, incest, female genital mutilation, beatings, torture and sex slavery is alive in every corner of the globe, including right here in Maine.

2014 marks the 14th year Girl Power Productions will present “The Vagina Monologues.” It has brought the play to stages in Damariscotta, Bath, Camden and Waldoboro. This year it will be performed at the Waldo Theater on Friday, April 25 and Saturday, April 26.

The show is directed by actor and V-Day organizer Ellie Busby. Busby announced that the show benefits New Hope for Women and the new shelter Hospitality House (a program of the Knox counties homeless coalitions).

For those who haves seen the show before, the 2014 V-Day cast will include familiar and new faces. Women and men, bankers and teachers, writers and DHHS workers, office workers, reporters and students.

This year’s cast includes special guest star Ida Zecco, star of “Estrogin and Tonic” fame; Busby, Sandra Lawrence, Dede Grant, Joanna Makara, Kim Fletcher, Dagney Ernest, Lisa Kristoff, Dan True, Erin Blomquist, Geary Smith, Nick Azzaretti, Katherine Lageuse, Melissa Hearth, and the “V-Girls”: Cayleigh Hearth, Alexis Fetteroli, Julia Kurr, Alivia Kurr, Bailee Cox and Liz Lash.

“It's always exciting to see more and more people participating and we hope that audiences will come and celebrate with us,” Busby said. “We're also welcoming some very young performers, the youngest of which is eight, who will be sharing ‘Girl Facts’ at the beginning of the show. This show is always fresh, and this year more than ever, it will include humor.”

Cayleigh Hearth, a Lincoln Academy student, will be reading “5 Cows and a Calf,” the story of a teen who runs from a forced marriage to the safe house, The City of Joy, in Kenya, and how she reclaims her life back in her own village.

And, Busby noted, Girl Power has the "honor" of incorporating three pieces from "The MENDing Monologues" (also written by Ensler) to be performed by Girl Power's "V-MEN" — Geary Smith, Dan True and Nick Azzarreti.

The first time the Monologues were ever seen on a stage in our state was in 2001, produced by Girl Power Productions of Waldoboro in Camden. Girl Power was founded by Jeff Payson and his daughter, Jessie. Soon after, they joined forces with Busby (then Ellie Hinds), who had long wanted to bring the Monologues to a Maine stage. Afterseeing a show in New York City, Busby sat down with the stars (and Ensler) to work out how she could do it here. And the rest is theater history.

V-Day is a global movement with the mission of ending violence against women and girls. It has been held annually since Ensler created it in 1998 to educate/increase awareness of domestic violence; what it is, what is being done to prevent it, to heal those affected by it, and to raise money to support the efforts of anti-violence agencies and groups. Since its inception in 1998, V-Day has raised over $100 million dollars. "V-Day" was originally held on Valentine's Day, but events are now held between February 14 and April 30.

New Hope for Women, based in Rockland with offices also in Bath, Damariscotta and Belfast, has been the primary beneficiary of local events, sponsored by Girl Power Productions, and Northeast Transport Company for the last 15 years.

The City of Joy is a pastoral community in Bukavu, DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) conceived of and created by women for women with funds raised by worldwide events held annually. Women survivors of gender-based violence are cared for, healed and then trained to be the next leaders. Ensler has described it as “an ideology which knows that grassroots women are the major sources of change and inspiration and must direct the future of their countries from Congo to New Orleans to Haiti.”

Busby said City of Joy has become a “full-fledged garden in all respects” the thick purple bougainvillea, the six foot roses, the compost pile host to a stunning garden of cabbage and carrots; not to mention 300 new chickens. The V-World Farm grows most of the food for City of Joy. At the V-World Farm everything is recycled; downed trees become buildings and they even make their own cement.

“OurCity of Joy is spreading an oasis of transformation, healing and love,” Busby said. “Both City of Joy and V-World Farm are thriving. Not only has seven tons of rice been harvested, but by the end of May 400 young women, who changed their own lives, will have graduated and will be impacting the lives of those in their communities.”

Tickets for 2014 “The Vagina Monologues” event are $15 at the door. Get yours, and/or make a reservation, by calling 207-832-6060. For group rates, call 207- 242-6335 for reservations.

Ninety percent of the funds raised go directly to charities in areas where the productions are held. The remaining 10 percent is the fee for producing “The Vagina Monologues.” That 10 percent has gone to a spotlighted need in the wider world. It has funded education for millions worldwide about the issue of violence against women and funded shelters and safe houses in Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq.

The Waldo Theater is located at 916 Main Street in Waldoboro.

These special benefit performances are presented this year as part of V-Day's campaign 'One Billion Rising For Justice,” a global call for women survivors of violence and those who love them to gather safely in places where they are entitled to justice: courthouses, police stations, government offices, school administration buildings, work places, sites of environmental injustice, military courts, embassies, places of worship, homes, or simply public gathering places where women deserve to feel safe, but too often do not; and to release their stories through art, dance, marches, ritual, song, spoken word, sit ins and testimonies.