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photography by EvgEnia ElisEEva/a.r.t. (O.P.C.) It's no exaggeration to say that playwright Eve E nsler ushered in a new wave of fem inism. Nea rly 20 yea rs ago, w it h her Obie Awa rd – w i n n i ng show The Vagina Monologues, she proudly reintroduced women to their power and their parts. Since then, the Tony winner ha s w r it ten a nu mber of book s a nd had nu merous plays produced, but one of her proudest legacies is V-Day, a globa l move - ment she launched to stop v iolence aga inst women a nd g i rls. T he One Bi l l ion R isi ng ca mpa ig n, a n of fshoot of V-Day, ha s seen people across t he globe t a ke to t he st reet s decr y ing v iolence aga inst women. In 2014, Ensler began a three-year collaboration with t he A mer ica n Reper tor y T heater, wh ich included last December's world premiere of her play O.P.C. (for "obsessive polit ica l cor - rectness"), a dark comedy about consumerist culture. She spoke with Boston Common about her commitment to activism, her relationship to ART, and her plans for the future. Your advocacy has attained worldwide impact with One Billion Rising. Yes, it feels that way. It's incredible. I just feel so honored and privileged to have this life of being in solidarity with women around the planet. One out of three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. That's over a billion women, and that's only the women we know who have suffered violence firsthand. I can't think of anything that reaches that many numbers and has that much impact. You were just in Pakistan, where women may be placing themselves in peril by speaking out and participating in a movement like this. Every country has its own degree of risk in speaking out. In America we sometimes think we're post-racial, we think we're post-feminist, but both of those are illusions. I think in the countries where we suppos- edly have these liberations, it can be harder to address misog yny, because it's more insidious, more cloaked. Do you believe you have a responsibility to speak out for women? Once you become awake to the depth and pervasiveness of something like the violence against women, there's no way you can't be involved in it until it stops. It's not some- thing where you go, "Well, that's interesting, All About Eve at the american repertory theater, EvE EnslEr has big ideas for women, on and off the stage. by jared bowen "i've always believed in the revolutionary power of theater." —eve ensler COnTinued On Page 64 top: Eve Ensler. left: A performance of O.P.C. with Michael T. Weiss, Kate Mulligan, and Olivia Thirlby. right: Ensler with children in Manila at an event for One Billion Rising. 62 bostoncommon-magazine.com PEOPLE Thought Leader