Females in office find its script objectionable
Former ad woman turned playwright, journalist and performance artist Gale Ahrens is still in the market for an agency to develop an ad campaign for “Penis’ Responses to the Vagina Muse,” slated to begin previews on or around Jan. 15 at the Theatre Building, 1225 W. Belmont.
Billed as a modern-day epic battle of the sexes, the piece is intended to be a response, from the male perspective, to feminist author Eve Ensler’s hugely popular “The Vagina Monologues,” which has been running for more than a year at the Apollo Theater. With a production budget approaching $500,000, half of which is earmarked for marketing and public relations, “Penis’ Responses” is being put on by Dr. Dean C. Dauw, an ex-Roman Catholic priest turned successful sex therapist—and now theatrical impresario.
The play’s potentially controversial content has so far proved problematic in Ahrens’ search for an ad agency. The day after Thanksgiving Ahrens wound up on the doorstep of & Wojdyla, a five-person shop at 333 N. Michigan. The three-year-old agency inciudes among its accounts Weber-Stephen Products, the National Geographic Channel and the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Biomedical Research.
Ahrens approached the agency after browsing a website of Chicago ad agencies, where & Wojdyla had a banner ad.
“I figured if they were diligent about advertising themselves, they would do well by their clients,” said Ahrens. David Wojdyla set up the agency in 1999 after exiting his post as managing partner/executive creative director at Bozell/Chicago.
Ahrens remembers leaving her 90-minute late-November meeting with Wojdyla feeling fairly confident his agency would take on the job of developing an ad campaign for “Penis’ Responses.”
But three days later, Wojdyla called her to say he couldn’t commit to the project until his business partner, Gayle Dieck, returned from vacation. A couple of days later Dieck called Ahrens and left a message. The two played phone tag a few times before Ahrens got another call from Wojdyla saying the agency had to decline the job because several members of the agency staff didn’t feel comfortable working on ads for the play.
Dieck later said she and the other two women in the office all found Ahren’s script objectionable. “I tried to be open-minded, but I read the play and it just felt angry to me,” explained Dieck, who couldn’t figure out who would be interested in the play besides angry men.
But Wojdyla, who lived in New York for many years, had no such qualms. “Nothing shocks me anymore,” said Wojdyla. Still, he and the only other male in the office lost the new business vote, 3 to 2.
Meanwhile, Ahrens said she is back on the street looking for an agency.
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