'Problems at The Purple Rose' - Part 4: Theater and former artists disagree on diversity record
This is the fourth 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 2. Click here for Part 3.
On a recent Stephen Colbert episode, actor Jeff Daniels mentioned George Floyd and said that white America has to do better about issues of race. It was an episode that had many people seething because they felt he was not taking care of race-related issues in the Chelsea, Michigan theater he founded, The Purple Rose.
“I promise you, it took everything in my power to keep my Twitter fingers still,” said Casaundra Freeman, one of only two female Black artists who had been hired as resident artists by the Purple Rose prior to the pandemic. “When the post was getting millions of likes and saying this is so great, I’m like, ‘What about home? Because you know very well what is going on. You know. And I don’t know how you can pretend not to know.”
She says she can’t believe that Daniels is so insulated that he doesn’t know what is happening.
“The people harmed at your theater aren’t sleeping well, how are you?” Freeman said of Daniels. “The people harmed at your theater have a great many issues as a result of what they experienced there. How are you so encased in protection? And isn’t that a privilege to be on Broadway playing a character like Atticus Finch, yet in your own theater, you have this going on and you have the privilege to not address it…I was offended as a Black woman and as someone who knows intimately of what was happening for him to make that statement and invoke the name of George Floyd while he doesn’t even feel it necessary to address what is going on at his theater. I’m deeply offended.”
Jeff Daniels and Stephen Colbert in September 2021.
There is a distinct difference in what Daniels publicly says his theater’s practice and history has been and what former Purple Rose artists are saying. In a fundraising letter to the public, Daniels wrote:
“Looking back on our three-decade history at The Purple Rose, I am proud of our diversity record. Since opening in 1991, thirty percent of our productions have featured a human being of color. Seven productions have featured a diverse character or community as its central story. Four of our productions have been written by a human being of color. These facts surpass the diversity record of many of our peers. But it’s not enough. The American Theatre and the Purple Rose must do more. While sidelined by the pandemic, diversity and inclusion have become our top priorities for our organization.”
Meanwhile, in a 22-page letter signed by 70 artists that was sent to Daniels, the board, and Purple Rose management, a different picture was painted of the Rose’s diversity record:
As of August 2020, all current board members are white or white presenting and all current staff members are white or white presenting. One member of the staff identifies a white and Latino.
Since 2012, the Purple Rose has hired exactly nine non-white actors, of which only five have appeared on the Purple Rose stage. Only four have appeared on stage since 2018.
In the past 15 years, the Purple Rose Theatre Company has contracted one BIPOC/Asian/Latinx artist to teach classes at the Purple Rose. The one teacher that has been contracted is white presenting multiracial (white/Latino).
Within the past 15 years, the Purple Rose Theatre Company has hired no BIPOC/Asian/Latinx directors.
Within the past 15 years, the Purple Rose Theatre Company has fully produced two plays by a BIPOC/Asian/Latinx playwright.
Within the past 15 years, the Purple Rose has hired one white-presenting multiracial (white/Latino) person as a Stage Manager; all other Stage Managers have been white.
Within the past ten years, the Purple Rose has hired zero BIPOC/Asian/Latinx designers in any capacity.
The letter also complained that between 2015 and 2020, the Purple Rose has hired only six Black individuals as actors or understudies. Of those, the letter specified, only four actually appeared on the Purple Rose stage and only one appeared in a role that was not specifically written for a Black actor. Only one was consistently hired to work on roles that were not specifically written for Black actors.
That has changed since that writing. Details on the Purple Rose’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative will be detailed in the seventh article in this series.
Purple Rose casts white actors in roles for non-white characters
The letter cited an incident: “For one production, the Purple Rose chose a white actor to portray a part that was specifically written to be played by a person of color, despite initially offering the role to a Black actor (before withdrawing the offer over concerns that white audiences would not “see enough” of themselves), and subsequently asking a Black actor to understudy the part.”
Jeremy Kucharek, who was given the role, and Dan Johnson, who understudied the part, gave more details of that incident.
The show, “Never, Not Once,” was a new work by Carey Crim that would get its world premiere at the Rose. Freeman appeared in the show as did Kucharek. The role of Rob Wilson, the boyfriend, was first listed as Asian-American or Latino and then eventually as “any ethnicity, though not Caucasian.”
Kucharek is Caucasian.
He said he was on his way to an audition at The Tipping Point, another Michigan Equity theater, when he got a call that Sanville didn’t want Tipping Point to have him. He was told that there was a role written for a person of color, but the playwright had given them discretion to offer it to the best person available.
“It was pitched to me that there was no one available,” Kucharek said. “What I didn’t know was that there was a (Black) actor in their community who was given the role and had the role rescinded from him. If I had known that, I would not have taken the role. In 2021, I simply would not have accepted the role. I had no idea I was taking opportunity away from someone who had been cast. There seemed to be a shadow—it felt like I had done something wrong in the room before I even entered. When I found out that piece of information, it all made sense to me.”
Johnson, who would become the understudy for the role, was friends with the Black actor who had been originally offered the part. The actor had been an apprentice for the Purple Rose, the first Black man to be hired as an apprentice and one of only two in the apprentice program history. Johnson said the former apprentice was flown out to the Purple Rose for a special audition.
Johnson picked the former apprentice up from Chelsea and drove him back to the airport. He told Johnson that he had auditioned with Sanville and Michelle Mountain and that Sanville had taken him out to breakfast and offered him the part.
Later, when the former apprentice contacted them for a contract, he was told they had decided to go in a different direction for that character.
“Come the first rehearsal of this show, I show up, the character description remains the same,” Johnson said. “I know a Black actor got rejected for the part and I know a Black actor (me) is understudying the part, and then I see a white actor playing the part.”
Katie Hubbard, managing director for the Purple Rose, said it isn’t unusual for new works to change directions while being developed.
“We do a lot of new work,” Hubbard said. “Sometimes characters change before rehearsal. Sometimes characters go away or get added. In this case, the character had changed, therefore the casting decision had changed. This was not uncommon. The play in question had other BIPOC actors.”
She points out that there is no guarantee for a part until you sign a contract, especially with new work.
When asked why, if the character had changed, it was understudied by a Black actor, she said that the role had less to do with race and more to do with the actor who was cast being better for the role.
Johnson said that it wasn’t until 2020 that he was told what he feels is the reason behind the casting decision.
“There was concern at the Purple Rose about what white male audiences would think of the show if the only white male character on stage was a character who wound up being revealed as a rapist,” said Johnson. “That was revealed to me in a screen capture of conversations between (a former employee and two Purple Rose staff) in which they both admitted that it wasn’t about serving the needs of the play.”
Racial myth of “natural talent” used against Black apprentice
Having a role rescinded was not the first nor the last time that Johnson said the former apprentice encountered racist behavior from the Purple Rose.
While this Black artist was an apprentice at the Rose, his brother was in a serious car accident and was hospitalized in Chicago with no other family members near. The apprentice asked for time off to go take care of him and was denied because he was told he needed to help tear down a set and build another one.
“Then Guy attempted to reassure him by saying, ‘This may sound racist, but whatever, your brother is going to be fine. Black people age at a slower rate than white people. Their bodies can take more punishment. He’ll be fine,’” Johnson said.
That theory is part of a racist myth of natural talent—that Black men are built genetically to be stronger, faster, and more durable.
Sanville would later deny saying that.
When Johnson was first told about the incident—a few weeks after it happened, the two of them discussed what to do. He said they struggled with whether it was worth making an issue of, whether he would be believed, and if not, how it would affect his working situation.
He said that eventually, they didn’t trust that they could tell anyone without it coming before Guy or that anyone would take the apprentice’s side over Guy or that Guy wouldn’t retaliate. So, they said nothing.
A few years later after the apprentice had moved on and won a full-ride scholarship at a prestigious university for an MFA in acting, The Purple Rose contacted him and asked him to appear in a video featuring former Purple Rose apprentices. He declined stating, “due to my experience at the Purple Rose, dealing with a violent altercation, and racial prejudice on numerous occasions, I request to be left out of this video and other projects dealing with the Purple Rose.”
The response was passed on to Sanville who angrily emailed and shamed him, claiming he was always treated with love and respect and that he’d always had the apprentice’s back. He closed the initial email saying that now he wondered whether they had been the victim of “a con job by a talented master of charm.”
The apprentice replied with a letter that detailed his experience and pointed out that Sanville had been part of the problem. Sanville replied at 9:15 p.m. Sunday with:
“This is utter and complete bullshit and you know it. A pack of lies. I never said any of that and you know it. My God, you’re a monster. This is ludicrous. You’re a liar. Shame on you. We gave you the time off. I never said any such nonsense about black men and bodies. I question your sanity. This will catch up to you. What a pity. Why did you press us so hard for letters of reference? I will be rescinding those by the way. Why did you allow me to fly you in for a special callback? None of this makes any sense. You’re evil, (actor’s name). Get some help. Do not contact me again. Guy Sanville.”
The former apprentice woke Johnson up to tell him about the exchange saying that he would not be responding but pointing out that it was a threat that could affect his educational career. Johnson contacted a Purple Rose employee who escalated the issue internally.
At 4 a.m. Monday, the former apprentice received this email from Sanville:
“I sincerely apologize for the tone of my last email. I reacted emotionally. I was devastated at the rift. I believed in respect and loved you. This whole thing has broken my heart. I sincerely wish you and yours nothing but the best. I hope that someday we might meet face to face and straighten this out. I have not been at my best. You have an incredible future ahead of you. I will be praying for you and yours. Peace, guy.”
Johnson said that he knows the issue made it before the Board of Directors, but that nothing ever came of it. Nor, as of October 2021, has there been any further contact between the former apprentice and the Purple Rose.
Employees and patrons referred to Black artists interchangeably
Freeman originally became involved at the Purple Rose because a friend referred her to the staff there. She said she was very quickly brought into the fold.
“Let me be absolutely clear about this,” Freeman said. “I personally, directly, was never mistreated. I came to learn of some things that were said about me later on, but it was never done in my presence. In my presence, I was treated exceedingly well.”
Later she would learn that she and another Black female resident artist were referred to as “one” and “the other one.” She was approached about signing the Purple Stories letter and she read it.
“Up until that point, until I read it, I didn’t know that I wasn’t valued,” Freeman said. “I didn’t know that I was being tokenized, that I was being treated as if I was interchangeable with another Black woman who works there.”
Casaundra Freeman
She said one of the things that hurts the most is that no one in her “artistic family” has reached out to her since the letter was sent to try to clear things up or to tell her what had really happened.
“There has been no outward and sincere effort to acknowledge what has happened, which means things will continue to happen,” Freeman said. “There has to be atonement, acknowledgement of the wrong in order to fight the wrongs.”
Freeman was part of “Never, Not Once,” a show that she points out talks about difficult things and the importance of listening to people who have been wronged.
“Theater is spectacle—performing for an audience,” Freeman said. “But when the work behind the scenes becomes performative, that is a problem. To do a show where you are literally talking about the harm that some people feel has been done to them and not want to talk about it is deeply problematic. One of the issues the show deals with is that she never reported it. When she did report it years later, there was a whole montage of voices asking all of the questions….that ultimately puts the blame back on the person who was harmed.”
She feels that the Purple Rose is doing just that when they point out there were no formal complaints filed at the time of incidents with the union.
Freeman said the Purple Rose’s non-response to the Purple Stories speaks to their character.
“I have to wonder how, after a 22-page letter, even after a petition, after all of these attempts to invite them to the table and just acknowledge the harm—I’m not even saying you have to admit to anything,” Freeman said. “But can’t you even say, ‘Hold up a minute. I didn’t know you felt that way. Here’s what I meant…here is what I will do better going forward.’ There hasn’t even been that. I don’t know how you can have it out there and so widely accepted without addressing it.”
Theater cast white actors in Native roles
The Purple Rose also cast several roles written for Native Americans with white actors through the years.
Former resident artist Michael Brian Ogden, a white man, joined the company in 2007.
“Personally, I have to say that I was treated very well in the time that I was there,” Ogden said. “They produced three plays that I had written…and I played tons of parts that probably at least a good chunk I had no business playing.”
He said he was cast as a Native American and other times were cast in roles for people of very different weights than he was.
Kristin Stetler was an apprentice for the Purple Rose in 2011-12. They were house manager for a show called “White Buffalo.” The show had a chorus of four Native American actors and one of the main characters was supposed to be a Native American.
“Guy Sanville lied about the actors’ indigenous status,” Stetler said. “I don’t know what their actual status was, but it was something like he was 1/32nd. Only one of the four chorus actors were actually Native American.”
One of the actors in the show told Stetler that the actors in the show were being given money by the Purple Rose to go to tanning salons to darken their skins.
“It was essentially the equivalent of blackface in my mind,” Stetler said. “They were putting orange-based makeup on their skin to make them look more Native American. Some dyed their hair black.
The letter to the Purple Rose from former artists listed other incidents of racism:
“The N-word has been freely used by white artists in conversation on multiple occasions, outside of any particular context in which it would be necessary to do so. In roughly the past five years, the Purple Rose has produced two plays that contain the N-word in the script, and therefore only two occasions that would necessitate use of this word.”
“The Artistic Director has made a joke of comparing his skin color to that of a lighter-skinned Black artist, remarking that he was “almost as dark as” the artist. This has occurred on several occasions.”
In a recent statement on its website, the Purple Rose stated:
The Purple Rose Theatre Company is taking actionable steps to provide and increase opportunities for marginalized artists and theatre-makers. We are working with our staff, artists, and patrons to create, live, and behave in ways that will respect and represent the wide diversity of souls who call the Midwest home.
The Purple Rose Theatre cares about the well-being of our artists, staff, patrons, and volunteers and is committed to diversity, inclusion, equity, and anti-racism. We can do more. And we are.
Former artists express skepticism, wondering how they can move forward without acknowledging past harm.
“I find the coverup interesting,” Freeman said. “I find the unwillingness to have a conversation when quite literally the place is built on having dialog—this is a place where people come to see people talk—and you don’t even want to do that? I’m disappointed that they don’t even care enough to respond and that the response is passing the buck.”
Click here for Part 5: LGBTQ+ artists feel unwelcome at The Purple Rose Theatre Company
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