LEWISTON – Olga Osadchaya, a Bates College senior, will direct the college’s fifth annual production of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” this weekend.

Performances will be at 8 p.m. tonight and Sunday, Feb. 13, in Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

The shows will also be shown live via closed circuit in the Keck classroom (G52), Pettengill Hall, Andrews Road.

Each year, the proceeds from this show support ways to eliminate violence against women and girls.

Ensler is an award-winning playwright, poet, activist and screenwriter.

For “The Vagina Monologues,” she asked a diverse group of women about their thoughts and feelings regarding this part of their bodies. The play Ensler created from these interviews relates women’s stories in terms that are personal yet universal, comic and poignant, brazen and mysterious.

This year, with the international organization V-Day as intermediary, part of the proceeds will go toward The Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq.

“The rest of the money will go towards local grassroots organizations committed to stopping violence towards women and girls,” Osadchaya said.

A neuroscience major studying the relationship between schizophrenia and memory, Osadchaya has been active in theater at Bates.

Since its Obie-winning premiere in 1996, Ensler’s play has been performed worldwide. Productions have featured such top actors as Glenn Close, Cate Blanchett, Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Marisa Tomei, Rosie Perez, Lily Tomlin, Kate Winslett, Melanie Griffith and Calista Flockhart.

In this year’s Bates’ production, students (including Osadchaya) will perform all the monologues.

Tickets will be sold at the door at Olin on performance nights starting at 7 p.m. For more information, call 786-6135. Admission will be $3 for Olin seating and $1 for seating in the Keck classroom.