Director of the Fire Hall Theatre Kathy Coudle-King speaks at Meet, Eat & Learn on Wednesday. Photo by Jennifer Friese/The Dakota Student.

Students, faculty and community members met together on Wednesday at the International Center with the Director of the UND Women’s Center Kay Mendick and Director of the Fire Hall Theatre  Kathy Coudle-King to learn more about Women’s History Month.

This month’s Meet, Eat & Learn Program was in honor of Women’s History Month, while King and local actors read plays written by contemporary women playwrights. Such plays included “The Making of Frankenstein,” which is a chronicle of Mary Shelley and how she came to write “Frankenstein.”

Different plays were selected by King in order to raise awareness of women’s artistic contributions to society as well as highlight serious issues affecting women, from the past to today.

King came up with the concept for this month’s program from the 365 Project, a playwriting project that features women playwright with pieces about outstanding women from the past to present.

According to the 365 Project website, “The project’s ambitious yet focused goal is to write women back into the social consciousness as well as empower and promote female playwrights around the country.”

One monologue that was read was “The Gage and Mr. Comstock,” a story written with a humorous twist by playwright Carolyn Gage (of no relation to the person of whom the title is named after). Based on real life people and events, the story is about Mathilda Jocelyn Gage, a suffragist who wrote the book, “Women, Church and State,” who received a letter by New York Politician Anthony Comstock threatening to press charges against her.

Comstock created the “New York Society for the Suppression of Vice,” and was able to get U.S. Congress to pass the Comstock Law, which was defined as an “act of the suppression of trade in, and circulation of, obscene literature and articles of immoral use.” These included articles about women’s reproductive information and contraceptives.

Meet, Eat & Learn

“(T)ypically our presenters are local…. and it’s just an informal way to bring people together, looking at similar issues, building that community and providing good solid information,” UND’s Womens Center Director Kay Mendick said.

Mendick also wanted to use this past Wednesday to bring attention to women’s contributions.

“March is Women’s History Month so we try to bring more of an awareness to peoples minds of the contributions that women have made and make a more deliberate attempt of putting that in the forefront in March,” she said. “Although I’m waiting for the day somebody comes up to me and says, ‘March is Women’s History Month?’”

For students who attended the program, that happened to be the case.

“I thought the program was very enlightening on certain issues, especially the Comstock one, and I thought art is a form of expression that’s also profound to do and bring up real world issues,” senior Margaret Burke said about the program.

Mendick said that the Meet, Eat & Learn program had been on campus ever since she can remember and that the program has been going before she started as director in 1998.

Meet, Eat & Learn happens once a month from 12 to 1 p.m. at the International Center on campus.

Lisa Casarez is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].