For Rivka Solomon, That Takes Ovaries, an international, multimedia network of remarkable women with tales to tell, has been both a creative and emotionally fulfilling venture. For others, it has become an outlet, a podium, and a valuable means by which to empower others. From a 2002 “story-hour” type inception at the Cambridge Public Library, the organization has become a movement that celebrates the daring bravado, the chutzpah, that is often women’s alone.

An April 10 fundraiser at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, in honor of March Women's History Month, will help TTO to continue its mission and the Boston-based nonprofit Web of Benefit to assist victims of domestic violence. Hosted by former state representative and former WRKO radio personality Marjorie Clapprood, with special guest WBZ-TV’s Executive Producer of “Sundays with Liz” Liz Walker, the reception, performance and open mike will showcase tried and true stories of females facing down challenges with courage and conviction.

The "Evening of Empowerment” at the school‘s Ellsworth Theatre will ring in six years of TTO’s global open mike, which has also produced a book and play, said Solomon. “We are like a Boston-based Vagina Monologues, only better, because we focus not only on sexuality, but on any gutsy act a woman has done,” she said, explaining that real, everyday women share their own ovarian acts after the performances.

Events are usually fundraisers for women's causes, which have ranged from Planned Parenthood in Rhode Island to the Women's Communal Bank in the rural mountains of Costa Rica. “From U.S. college campuses in Boston and YWCAs in Iowa to the dirt floors of women's centers in India, we have held over 500 TTO events,” said Solomon. A TTO staff member recently used the model to empower women in Asia who had been sex trafficked and prostituted; Gloria Steinem attended one of the open mikes. A TTO event held this week in India was hosted by the U.S. Consulate in Calcutta, India, under the auspices of the U.S. State Department.

Elayne Clift, Senior Correspondent for New Delhi-based Women's News Service, had Solomon’s book and thought TTO might work as a benefit for the Vermont Women’s Fund. “I had done The V-Monologues as a fundraiser for the Burmese Women's Union in Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2006 while teaching there,” she said, “so I was familiar with the format.” Clift, who has worked in women's health and gender issues for over 20 years, says it’s in the blood. “As Jews," she said, “we are expected to be charitable and do good deeds.”

“I am convinced that much of my motivation to work as an advocate for women's empowerment stems from me being Jewish,“ concurred Solomon, whose mother, Bobbi Ausubel, is her co-playwright. Her father, Stan Edelson, is known for his own theatre productions. “The women's rights angle of my play and my women's empowerment open mike movement is very much based in my Jewish upbringing,” said Solomon, who bemoans the everyday sexism that manifests in the hypersexualization of girls on TV, in music videos, in advertising. “I feel devastated when I hear the staggering statistics of violence against women in this country, from rape to domestic abuse,“ she said.

Men have grabbed hold of the mike as well. “While women talk about biking through Nepal alone, or standing up for themselves against a mean boss, or about leaving an abusive relationship,” said Solomon, “guys get up and brag about their mothers who survived breast cancer, their little sisters who fought to get on the football team.”

Web of Benefit Executive Director Johanna Crawford held an open mike last March. “We charged $29.50 or one half of a Charlie Card,” she said, “as we give many small grants for transportation. Each woman knew exactly what her contribution would help pay for.” Web of Benefit employs a "pay it forward" policy, where each grant recipient must in turn, help three others.

At the April 10 event, a play about women's acts of courage will be performed by Pine Manor students, survivors of domestic violence will be honored by Web of Benefit, and audience members will be invited to share their own stories. Participants will receive a chocolate Golden Ovary Award. “The effect that telling one’s own story has on each woman is quite amazing to see,” said Crawford. “That Takes Ovaries mixes the arts with activism at the grassroots level,” said Solomon.

Clapprood was Executive Director of the One Family Scholars program, an organization committed to ending family homelessness by providing financial support for women to pursue higher education. She and Walker helped found the Jane Doe Safety Fund, a multi-million dollar project to support domestic abuse shelters and safe houses around the state.