After winning acclaim for writing and performing off-Broadway's The Vagina Monologues, Ensler turned her eye to the rest of the female form. Whether undergoing Botox injections or living behind burkas, women of all cultures and backgrounds feel compelled to change the way they look in order to fit in, to be accepted, to be "good." Merging those cross-cultural explorations with her own personal journey to come to terms with her "less-than-flat, post-40s stomach," Ensler created The Good Body.
The Good Body opened on November 15 to mixed to positive reviews. In his Broadway.com Review of the show, William Stevenson wrote, "In her new performance piece, The Good Body, Ensler focuses on another body part: her stomach. It might seem like little more than navel-gazing, so to speak, but she turns it into an illuminating, entertaining look at women's unhealthy fixation on body image… While Ensler wrote the deeply personal show, Peter Askin deserves some of the credit for the production's assured tone and pacing."
The Booth Theatre's next tenant will be Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, starring Billy Crudup, Jeff Goldblum, Zeljko Ivanek and Michael Stuhlbarg. Performances of the play begin there on March 21 in preparation for an April 10 opening.