'Problems at The Purple Rose' - Part 2: Former employees share stories of hostile work environment
This is the second in a series of seven articles about the Purple Rose and the stories that have come out about it. Click here for Part 1. Click here for Part 3.
The Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea, Michigan stands accused of cultivating a toxic work environment where artists, particularly young apprentices, are routinely abused.
According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, “Harassment is a form of employment discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.” They say that harassment becomes unlawful where “1) enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment, or 2) the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile or abusive.”
The site (https://www.eeoc.gov/harassment) further states that offensive conduct may include, “offensive jokes, slurs, epithets or name-calling, physical assaults or threats, intimidation, ridicule or mockery, insults or put-downs, offensive objects or pictures, and interference with work performance.”
Apprentice humiliated for reassuring an actor about his costume
Jowi Estava has been away from the Purple Rose for five years, but still stutters and stumbles when she talks about her experience there, an experience that she said gave her PTSD and almost took away her ability to perform.
Several people interviewed for this article have said that they believe Artistic Director Guy Sanville and former Apprentice Chief Michelle Mountain choose an apprentice each year to make an example of and Estava is certain she was that apprentice in her class. The apprenticeship program lasts for 13 months and she left after 10.
“I should have quit much earlier,” she said.
She said she was rarely if ever late, was never absent, and asked for additional work outside of the 60 to 80 hours they put in each week.
“I was there to make an impression and learn,” Estava said.
She said she was constantly having work very publicly taken away from her and then being put in the box office.
Jowi Estava
Three months into her internship, they were working on a production of “Talley’s Folly.” One of the actors has to wear ice skates and act like he’s off-balance. He told Estava that the skates were too big and he was worried he was going to hurt his ankle.
“I said, ‘don’t worry, your performance skates are the right size,’” Estava said. “I knew that because I’d seen them, but while I was talking to him, I saw a stage manager making a motion that I needed to stop talking, so I did. I walked over and she reminded me that apprentices aren’t allowed to comment on props or costumes.”
The stage manager, Stephanie Buck, confirmed that there was a Rose policy that apprentices were instructed not to give actors reactions to their costumes based on the design.
“It was really a theater etiquette that you don’t want to tell someone what they look like in the costume,” Buck said.
Buck remembers Estava bringing up an issue during rehearsal about whether the skates were period and asking her to stop.
“She reminded me of the policy and I was like, ‘oh my god, I’m sorry,’” Estava said. “I was just thinking of the actor being scared. She said she understood, but to be careful and we were happy. It was fine.”
Later, Buck mentioned to Mountain that she’d had a moment with Estava in rehearsal that felt a little bit heated. Both Buck and Estava say that what happened next was the problem.
The next day in rehearsal, Estava was sent back to the main building. Sanville was waiting in the hallway and flagged her down, asking her to follow him. They went into Jeff Daniels’ office where several members of the Purple Rose staff were waiting.
“They were 100 percent ambushing me,” Estava said.
She sat down between Buck and Mountain, across from Guy and five or six other members of the staff.
“Guy immediately launched into a diatribe yelling at me, his face red and spittle flying,” Estava said. “He told me I had almost ruined the production and that when he heard, he wanted to fire me immediately and didn’t only because Michelle stood up for me. He accused me of intentionally trying to make this actor have doubts.”
After a few minutes, Estava said she interrupted to stand up for herself. She said Sanville’s level of anger made her think that he must have missed a piece of information because there was no way there would be this reaction to what had happened.
“I stopped him and said I feel like I need to explain that the only reason I said something was as an actor myself…” Estava said, adding she was cut off before she could explain what she would have wanted in that circumstance. “Guy interrupted me, pointed a finger in my face, and said, ‘Let’s get one thing straight, you’re not an actor.’”
She said she can remember very little of what happened next, that it was in that moment she woke up to the situation she was in.
“I was like, this man doesn’t care about me or my safety and there are six other people in this room watching it happen and they aren’t doing anything,” Estava said. “It was like when a bomb goes off and you can’t hear anything.”
Sanville told her she was now on probation and if she made any more mistakes, she would be fired. He left the room followed by everyone else silently except for Mountain and Buck. Estava said that Buck turned to her and was crying, saying that she didn’t ask for this meeting and didn’t know it was going to happen.
“They sent me back to rehearsal five minutes later,” Estava said. “I was in a full breakdown. I was hyperventilating and weeping and having a full panic attack. Guy said, ‘You have five minutes to get back to work.’ So, I had to pull myself together and get back to rehearsal. Then every single day for the rest of my apprenticeship, I was physically shaking and having insane anxiety every day. I knew if I made one tiny mistake, I’d get fired. All the other apprentices would have to do my work and my career would be over and Guy would blackball me.”
Artists talk about an environment of fear
Buck said she was in many meetings where people ended up crying.
“I think Guy takes a lot of pride in being untrained and I think that extends to his emotional maturity as well,” Buck said. “Guy fancies himself a bit of a football coach and employs similar tactics in a workplace where that is not appropriate. Yelling in people’s faces happened. It happened in my face.”
Katie Hubbard, managing director at The Purple Rose, denies that there is much yelling over disagreements.
Katie Hubbard
“I will say based on what I know that some of these situations are where a director or artistic director enforces union or building policies based on requirements that need to be followed,” Hubbard said. “We have policies based on the safety of our actors, our crew, our staff, and our patrons. So, I believe that in some of these stories, the director was enforcing a policy.”
Buck said that she remembers a time before Hubbard where a crisis consultant was brought in because of disagreements between Sanville and other administrative staff members. She said that Sanville and the development director at the time had an abrasive relationship but that the board really liked the development director.
“They told Guy he needed to get along with her,” Buck said. “Jeff Daniels came in and said no, you can’t get rid of Guy.” Shortly after that, Sanville was named COO.
“I’m so mad at Jeff for swooping in and telling the board that they couldn’t get rid of Guy when it could have done some good. He was already quite toxic at that point, but look how much harm could have been saved if Jeff hasn’t told them they had to keep Guy.”
Jeremy Kucharek, a former Purple Rose artistic associate, said few people feel safe in defending each other.
“That place really runs at the whims, moods, and behavior of Guy Sanville,” Kucharek said. “If Guy is in a bad mood, everyone in the building is silent. It is hard to describe the amount of power he has in that way and how unsafe it is to come out in support of a family of artists.”
Buck also recognizes that there is a tendency to minimize one’s history.
“I would say to any apprentice who felt they were wronged because he yelled in their face, that wasn’t you,” Buck said. “He was wrong. Like, a boss shouldn’t actually yell in your face.”
In the 22-page letter that 70 artists sent to the Purple Rose in 2020, it claims that the Purple Rose runs its apprentice program in a mentally and psychologically abusive manner. A few excerpts include:
“At least one former apprentice reports being publicly rebuked by the Artistic Director and threatened with termination for making a comment that was deemed “outside their purview” as an apprentice.”
“At least one former apprentice reports being threatened publicly with termination by the Artistic Director for making a minor mistake (bringing an incorrect pair of shoes for an actor).”
Apprentice threatened with a lawsuit if they talked about experience
Another apprentice in a later class experienced a similar situation. Robin, not their real name, asked to keep their identity anonymous because Sanville threatened to sue them if they made any negative comment about the Rose in public.
Robin first heard about the Purple Rose when they were in 8th grade and their grandmother took them to a show. They fell in love and were in awe of them. They made it their goal to work there. When they did apply for an apprenticeship, they said they were in a privileged position that allowed them to agree to the terms—terms that included a $300 (before taxes) weekly pay in which they were forbidden to work elsewhere and were given no assistance with housing.
They said the beginning of the apprenticeship was wonderful and that they felt they were showered in praise and “love bombed.”
“They were totally setting us up, grooming us,” Robin said. “I ate it up. I love praise so this is great. Not only do I get to work here, but they love me and I’m doing great.”
They were first shocked when a fellow apprentice was fired in January during tech week for the second show of the season. While they said this apprentice had a lot of issues, the reason he was fired was that he inconvenienced Sanville by not knowing where a light bulb was.
“We were all shocked by that,” Robin said. “But we thought, it’s OK, good thing we’re not like that. We’re on our toes and everything.”
The next month, they were working the box office and a patron came in and was really nasty and misogynistic,” Robin said. “He said he’d come back and beat me if I didn’t have his order right. I was telling Michelle (Mountain, the apprentice chief), because I was really upset. She made me come and tell Guy which I didn’t want to do.”
They said they repeated what was said to them to Sanville and his response was, “Was he joking?” There was a long pause and then Mountain asked whether it mattered. Robin was told they would ban the patron from coming in, but they said he wasn’t banned.
Their apprenticeship took a further turn in June. Another apprentice was disciplined for getting drunk during the closing night of a show. Robin was brought into a meeting where they talked about this other apprentice at great length—saying they couldn’t trust them, they were horrible, and that while this other apprentice was untrustworthy, the staff could trust Robin. They thought highly of them, but lowly of the other apprentice.
Robin admits that they fell for the praise.
“When I look back, I realize how utterly unprofessional it was for them to reveal to me their personal thoughts on (the other apprentice) and then stroke my ego to get me to fall even harder for the rhetoric,” Robin said.
It wouldn’t last.
On the closing night of a show that included child actors, a 9-year-old actor was yelling in the Green Room and making a lot of noise. Robin sat in a corner whispering to a colleague. Mountain came out of the dressing room and yelled at Robin that they needed to be quiet in a way they described as humiliating.
They left the room and went outside to take a breather. They then texted Michelle and said, “Just so you know, it was not me doing the yelling.” Mountain, they said, texted them back and told them they just needed to take the note.
“This is not a note,” Robin said. “She just reprimanded me really unprofessionally. I screenshotted the response and sent it to a group chat where we had been talking about Michelle.”
Robin said the apprentices had been having problems with Mountain because they felt she was untruthful and unreliable. When the group had tried to have a meeting with her to resolve these issues, Sanville showed up and, Robin said, “used his intimidation and emotional manipulation to guilt us and lectured us for most of the meeting.”
After Robin sent the screenshot to the group, they got called into a meeting. One of the stage managers had heard about it and he told Mountain. Robin was then called into a meeting that they describe as one of the most traumatizing things that have ever happened to them.
They were seated with two stage managers behind them and Mountain and Sanville were on the other side. They said that Sanville tore into them and told them that they couldn’t be trusted and that they were trying to start a revolution.
“He put his finger in my face, he yelled, he raised his voice,” Robin said. “I can’t remember exactly what he said because it was awful.”
In that meeting, they took away the house management job they had given them and returned it to the apprentice they had earlier said they couldn’t trust. They said there was an onslaught of yelling and that Sanville kept telling them that they were not the victim.
“It was awful,” Robin said. “There was no HR representation. Our HR person was the financial person and I had told her when the whole Michelle thing happened that I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I needed her to be present if there was a meeting, but she was not there. There was no HR presence at all.”
During the meeting, Robin said that Sanville played into their insecurities including telling them that Jeff Daniels’ wife didn’t like them because of their Facebook posts.
“I didn’t even know her,” Robin said. “It blew my mind and I started crying. I really turned up the tears because I just needed this to be over. I told them I was sorry and I apologized. Guy said this was the best possible outcome this meeting could have and he hugged me. I had to hug him in order to be released from this meeting. It was horrible. I’ve never had to hug someone who just tore into me. It was dehumanizing and awful.”
After the meeting, they sent an email to everyone on staff apologizing for their behavior.
“I felt so worthless and awful,” Robin said. “This place I had loved had totally betrayed me when I had been working so hard and trying my best and doing really well. It was so totally out of proportion to what I did.”
A few days later, one of the stage managers in the meeting called them into Jeff Daniels’ office and apologized for failing them as a stage manager.
“He told me that they pick an apprentice every year about 3/4s of the way through to ‘destroy’ and make an example of to keep everyone in line,” Robin said. “I was horrified by that. He gave me examples throughout the years.”
Former Purple Rose employees cite lack of accountability
Kucharek said he could vouch for the fact that apprentices were not safe at the Purple Rose.
“They certainly weren’t safe to speak up against Guy or safe to say no. They never would have been able to say, ‘I don’t feel comfortable doing this,’ or for it even to be a dialog,” Kucharek said.
Guy Sanville (Photo: Patch.com)
“In an ideal work, it would be a safe place, it would be a diverse place,” Kucharek said. “It would not be based on the whims of one person. There would be systems in place that would prevent anyone, whether Guy Sanville or Jeff Daniels or anyone in an artistic position, from getting away with half of what Guy has gotten away with.”
In the 22-page letter signed by 70 artists, complaints were made about Sanville’s lack of accountability, including, “Several administrative staff have reported that the Artistic Director has reminded them of his close relationship with the Founder of the Purple Rose Theatre Company, Jeff Daniels, including saying that the was ‘untouchable’ and that ‘if you lose me, you lose Jeff.’” And “The Artistic Director, despite having a documented history of complaints against him (by administrative staff, artists, and apprentices), has thus far seemed to escape any sort of internal accountability for his actions, and, in fact, has created an environment in which almost no one within the organization feels like they have the ability to hold him accountable for anything at all.”
Katie Hubbard, the theater’s managing director, said that Sanville is just as accountable for his actions as any other staff member and sometimes to a higher degree because of his level within the organization.
“There is absolutely zero tolerance for harassment or discrimination of any kind and we are a fully transparent workforce,” Hubbard said. “Any concern that any employee has with another employee, whether contract, staff members or volunteers, can be brought up and they will be helped.”
She said that the Purple Rose board would treat Sanville the same as any other employee even while recognizing his artistic value to the organization.
“The board is aware that Guy Sanville brings an intensity to his job. He leads actors to very emotional places, often with difficult situations for their characters,” Hubbard said. “He does expect the highest level of commitment to the craft. He has run a successful program for over 26 years.”
Buck shared a story about her own apprenticeship. They were in a master class about acting and reviewing headshots. She was sitting in the third row when Sanville held up a picture of her headshot.
“He was like, ‘So what do we think of this one?’” Buck said. “He then went on to talk about why this person sucks the energy out of the room and you don’t want to get to know this person. So, that was while I was cleaning the toilets after him and building his sets, and working in the box office. It seems ridiculous now. It seems like something out of a movie.”
Five years after she’s left the Rose, Estava has done a lot to try to restore her health from going on a month’s long meditation retreat in Qubec to journaling to dipping her toes back into theater.
“I truly don’t know if I can say I’m better now,” Estava said. She said the first time she walked into an audition after leaving the Rose, she had a panic attack and wondered how she was ever going to go into a rehearsal room or audition room again. “It was what I had planned to do with my life and it was gone. The only thing in my life that I’ve ever felt right doing was taken away from me.”
If you have more you’d like to share about this and other Purple Rose stories, please contact Bridgette Redman at bredman.lsj@gmail.com