This Month's Title Photo

This month's title photo is by Brittany Duck and comes from the Red Fern Theatre Company's production of Donna Fiumano-Farley's A Shot Away: Personal Accounts of Military Sexual Trauma.

The docudrama play deals with survivors of US Military's sexual trauma. A Shot Away is based entirely on interviews with American soldiers who have been sexually assaulted by their "fellow" soldiers. In their own words, the soldiers explore this ongoing epidemic in our military and examine what can be done to address and prevent instances of sexual assault and rape in the military, and that it is not only the rapes and assaults, but it is also the handling by the military, as they are the judge and jury.

Panayiota Bertzikis, a Coast Guard veteran, is one of the veterans interviewed for A Shot Away. "The problem of rape in the military is not only service members getting raped, but it's the entire way that the military as a whole is dealing with it," says Bertzikis. "From survivors having to be involuntarily discharged from service, the constant verbal abuse, once a survivor does come forward your entire unit is known to turn their back on you. The entire culture needs to be changed."

The production opens at the LABA Theater on 14th Street March 31st.

Red Fern Theatre Company presents
Donna Fiumano-Farley's
A SHOT AWAY: Personal Accounts of Military Sexual Trauma
directed by Melanie Moyer Williams

Featuring
Laura Anderson*, Dana Berger, Grant Chang*, Elizabeth Flax*, Jessica Myhr*, Jeff Pierce*, Tara Ricasa*, Jackie Sanders*, Rafe Terrizzi, and Ian Way

*Actors appear courtesy of Actors Equity Association. Equity Approved Showcase.

LABA Theatre at the 14th Street Y
344 East 14th Street between First and Second Avenues, NYC

March 31 – April 17, 2011
Thursdays at 8 p.m. , Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m. , Sundays at 3 p.m.; Additional performance on Monday, April 11 at 7pm.

Tickets $25
http://www.redferntheatre.org/ or 866.811.4111

Tina Priest is dead. Is it suicide? Or, is it because, just weeks before, this American soldier reported she had been raped on her Army base in Iraq. Her mother and twin sister are left with many doubts and unanswered questions.

Priest is not alone; six other soldiers recount their experiences as survivors of military sexual trauma. In their own words, the soldiers explore this ongoing epidemic in our military and examine what can be done to address and prevent instances of sexual assault and rape in the military.