Noga Yechieli- Lysistrata Project

The Lysistrata project was a brilliant initiative in 2003 to protest against the war in Iraq. The New York group Theaters Against War took the famous Greek play Lysistrata, which tells the story of women who protested a war by refusing sex to the men of the city until they stopped fighting, and created a modern adaptation of it. 

In order to engage communities and turn this project into a political initiative on a global scale they used a few smart tactics. 

First they created a free website  that served as an instruction manual for organizing a reading of the play. It had a lot of information regarding the war in Iraq and reasons to oppose it, downloadable logos, posters, fliers, a sample press release, and contact information for listed readings organized by geographical areas. This strategy allowed people around the world to participate in the project, either as audience or as actors/activists, which subsequently took the pressure off of each performance since it was so global, it could be done on any scale and still have significance. 

The other important strategy in my opinion was giving a deadline date for the performance. Had they left it open, people would have performed it on different dates and the coverage would have spread out and lost a lot of its significance, and also people would have taken their time with the initiative and perhaps ended up not doing it at all. However because they gave a specific date for the performances, it forced anyone who wanted to take part in the project to organize it quickly and take action as soon as possible. Moreover, having 1029 readings on every continent on the same day was such a powerful number that forced the media to cover it, and it just could not be ignored. Furthermore the last strategy that was probably the most brilliant of them all, was choosing a play that would be irresistible for people to participate in or go and view as an audience. Because it is about sex, women refusing sex and contains nudity, people were more inclined to participate. It is a form of talking about politics in a way that is funny and sex always sells unfortunately, or fortunately in this case.