Event

Birth, a play by Karen Brody

Birth is a documentary-style play based on over one hundred interviews Karen Brody conducted with pregnant mothers across America about their birth experiences. It tells the true stories of 8 women painting a portrait of how low-risk, educated women are giving birth in America today.

Although Brody interviewed only American women the themes in the play are universally found in most industrialized countries today: the surprisingly large number of pregnant women not knowing their birth options and the risks of medical interventions; coercion of pregnant women physically and verbally; the power and pleasure available to women who give birth; and that secret knowing inside all pregnant moms that their bodies rock. Birth has been performed to sold-out audiences throughout the world as part of the BOLD movement, raising over $350,000 for projects that provide mother-friendly maternity care services and outreach.

Moving between first-person monologues, some dialogue, and the voices these women heard on the day they gave birth, this play is the first piece of theater to confront what City Lights Theater Company called, "The naked truth about childbirth."