The Westside Arts Theatre is the New York venue where The Vagina Monologues opened Off-Broadway on October 3, 1999. In Eve Ensler’s account, the production marked a second life for the play: a new theatrical presentation whose ticket sales could also help sustain V-Day, connecting the work’s public performance to an organizing movement against violence toward women.

The Off-Broadway Opening

The play’s Westside Arts Theatre production opened on October 3, 1999, after its first publication. Ensler describes the opening not simply as another staging but as a renewal, saying the production gave the play its second life. The theatre therefore enters the book at a moment when the work’s identity expands beyond a published script: it becomes a renewed live production with the capacity to reach audiences and support action.

The account names David Stone as the production’s lead producer and credits his vision, persistence, and faith in The Vagina Monologues with helping bring it out into the world. His contribution links the theatre’s staging to the practical means by which a play travels: production leadership and a willingness to carry the work beyond the page. The venue is not described through its architecture or neighborhood; its significance comes from what was made possible there.

Theatre and V-Day

The Westside Arts Theatre production was also connected to V-Day through Stone’s commitment to the movement. Ensler particularly thanks him for joining V-Day wholeheartedly and finding a way for ticket sales to support it. In that arrangement, theatrical attendance had a consequence beyond the performance itself: revenue from the production could provide support for a movement working to end violence against women.

This link gives the opening a double function. It brought the play back to life as theatre while also creating a means to sustain organizing beyond the stage. The venue consequently stands at the intersection of artistic presentation and material support: the performance could be experienced as a work of theatre, and its ticket sales could contribute to V-Day. The book specifies this connection without detailing the sums raised or the particular distribution of proceeds.

Direction and Performance

Joe Mantello directed the production. Ensler praises his direction as having great flair while remaining understated and beautiful, and recalls that he persuaded her to take her shoes off and take herself less seriously. That detail offers a glimpse of the work of shaping a performance: direction affected not only the play’s presentation but also Ensler’s approach to appearing in it. The account gives no further description of the staging, but it makes clear that the production’s renewed life was collaborative, grounded in the work of a producer, a director, and the people who carried the play into performance.

The Westside Arts Theatre is thus significant less as a described physical space than as the site of a specific artistic and organizational convergence. The October 1999 opening renewed The Vagina Monologues in production; Stone’s support connected that production to V-Day; and ticket sales offered a practical means of supporting the movement. Together, these details explain why Ensler remembers the theatre’s production as a second life for the play rather than merely a new date in its performance history.