The upcoming Lake Charles production of “The Vagina Monologues” has a cast of a variety of women, its director says.

Nettra Soileau is at the helm of the show to be presented by Gabriel Brown’s Urban Soul Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 25. The venue is the Benjamin Mount Memorial Theater in the Central School Arts and Humanities Center.

“The play is controversial,” Soileau said, “but we hope to send the audience home laughing and crying and with some healing of past wounds.”

The cast is made up mostly of women from southwest Louisiana. It has African-American and Caucasian, older and younger, college students and professors and even a social worker,” she said.

The production is in observance of V-Day, a national recognition of the problem of domestic and sexual violence against women. Proceeds will be donated to Oasis center for survivors of abuse to women, she said.

The play was written by Eve Ensler, who first produced it an read all of the monologues in a small venue, limited run in New York in 1996. It moved to off-Broadway and then after an extensive word-of-mouth promotion, had a showing in 2001 at Madison Square Garden with such notables as Melissa Etheridge and Whoopi Goldberg taking over the monologues.

‘“The Vagina Monologues’ is a poignant and hilarious tour of the last frontier, the ultimate forbidden zone,” Gabriel Brown, founder of the Urban Soul theater, said. “It is a celebration of female sexuality in all its complexity and mystery. This stunning phenomenon has swept the nation, offering real women’s stories of intimacy, vulnerability and sexual self-discovery.

“Witty and irreverent, compassionate and wise, this Obie Award-winning masterpiece gives voice to women’s deepest fantasies and fears,” he said.

If you go

• Tickets are $15 each and on sale now. They can be purchased online at www.thevmonologueslc.eventbrite.com.

• Proceeds for this event will benefit Oasis, a safe haven for survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

• The performance contains very strong, mature language and is recommended for ages 18+.

• For more information, questions and concerns please contact Gabriel Brown by phone at 337-660-7899 or by email at info@igabrielbrown.com.

Regina Joseph. (Rick Hickman / American Press)

Regina Hank. (Rick Hickman / American Press)