'Problems at The Purple Rose' - Part 6: Purple Rose Theatre Company accused of crossing sexual boundaries and grooming

This is the sixth 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. Click here for Part 4. Click here for Part 5.

The theater has long been a source of inappropriate handling of intimate scenes—sometimes innocently, sometimes to satisfy the desires of predators. It is why in recent years there has been greater use of intimacy directors and more education on what is and is not acceptable to ask of actors.

The Purple Rose Theatre, a resident Equity company in Chelsea, Michigan founded by Jeff Daniels, has been accused of fostering an unsafe work environment that does not recognize boundaries and mocks the idea of needing an intimacy professional. Meanwhile, artists have said they were forced into situations that were uncomfortable or had to observe incidents that crossed boundaries, in particular for female-presenting or LGBTQ+ artists.

Also, while many women have had excellent experiences on stage at the Purple Rose, others have said that young women, in particular, are sometimes abused, sometimes groomed, and often leave the Purple Rose with trauma that lasts for years.

At least one complaint of sexual harassment, according to legal documents, was handled in a way that heaped more trauma upon the complainant and threatened her if she told anyone else about it.

While many theaters are turning to intimacy professionals—coaches, directors, coordinators—the Purple Rose has refused to do so, scoffing at the need.

According to the 22-page letter filed by 70 Purple Rose artists, “The Artistic Director has stated multiple times that, ‘A production that needs an Intimacy Director needs a new director,’ implying there was never a need to hire a certified Intimacy Director, and therefore no need to have a defined set of protocol for actors’ safety.”

Rehearsals were cited as places where boundaries were ignored

Several people interviewed for this article shared incidents in rehearsals that either made them uncomfortable or they felt crossed the line into inappropriate behavior. Other incidents are being reported on the Purple Stories Instagram account.

Stephanie Buck was a stage manager at the Purple Rose for many years. She admits that she was part of a system that led her to do things she wouldn’t do now because she thought that was the way things were supposed to be done.

She described intimacy rehearsals where the rest of the company was expected to leave the area to give the actors privacy. She was directed to put on sexy music, move to the edge of the room, and turn her back to the stage. The actors—one a man in his 40s and the other a woman in her 20s—were directed to make out and roll on the floor for an hour.

Michael Brian Ogden, a resident actor at the Purple Rose at the time who would eventually marry Buck, said that in the mind of his 26-year-old self he thought that exercise was extreme.

“But there was this sense of I guess that’s what you’ve got to do,” Ogden said. “You’ve got to kiss him in the show, so you have to get over your hangups. If that’s what’s gotta be done, then that’s the thing that has to be done. Ab-SURD.”

Now he says he knows better—that intimacy should be choreographed the same way that a fight is choreographed. You wouldn’t, for example, tell two actors to go slap each other to get used to fighting.

“As a fight guy, you would think I would have had that realization, but of course I didn’t,” Ogden said. “I’m in significant, if not good, company.”

Buck further talked about another actor who was put through emotional abuse.

“There was a wonderful actress who used to work there,” Buck said. “She would come off stage broken, ripped open, emotionally raw, cheeks wet with sobbing. Guy would take her face in his hands and say, ‘You’re so beautiful when you’re crying.’”

Buck said the actress desired Sanville’s affirmations just enough that he was able to continue doing that to her.

Managing Director Katie Hubbard, when talking about the board holding Sanville accountable for any complaints, spoke about Sanville’s ability to draw incredible performances out of people.

“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.”

Jeremy Kucharek, a former resident artist at the Purple Rose, described an intimacy exercise they were made to do in a show about rape. It took place a few weeks into rehearsals and everyone was made to participate, even those who had no moments of physical intimacy in the play.

In the exercise, the scene partners were directed to take hands. Upon Sanville’s command, they would start kissing and continue to do so until he said “release.” This would be repeated at varying lengths.

“I’m unafraid of kissing my scene partner,” Kucharek said. “I’ve been in a lot of shows where I did so and there were conversations about when that would be introduced into rehearsals. They weren’t improv moments. It’s not something I’m afraid of, but it was not appropriate since I didn’t have to do it in the show at all.”

Kristin Stelter, an apprentice for the Purple Rose in 2011-2012, was house manager for “White Buffalo,” a show where they said several inappropriate things happened from the casting to behavior in rehearsals.

While many of the indigenous characters were cast with white actors, there was a Native American actress who was flown in from New York. It was, Stelter said, her first time on stage.

“Guy had this idea that at the very beginning of the show, there was going to be the birth of the white buffalo which was a naked woman in his mind,” Stelter said. “He had her strip down to her underwear in rehearsal while she writhed around on stage. There were no safety parameters about this person.”

The idea was eventually dropped, but Stelter said they felt bad that this was the woman’s first experience on stage. They also said they were uncomfortable with how Sanville reacted during this rehearsal.

“The way he acted in the space was very disturbing,” Stelter said. “It was like he was turned on. He grunted and was fidgety, saying ‘oh yeah, oh yeah.” It felt really disgusting being a witness in the space.”

Casaundra Freeman, an actor who played the part of a lesbian couple in ‘Never, Not Once,’ said someone was taking pictures of their intimacy rehearsal.

“They were posting them on Facebook—that happened,” Freeman said. “And I said no, that’s not going to happen and the photos were taken down relatively quickly.”

Apprentices have also reported that they are required to be deferential to Resident Artists no matter what the request was. Some apprentices reported that they did not feel empowered or comfortable to say no to a resident artist who asked them for a massage.

Apprentice forced to confront their harasser

In the 22-page letter signed by 70 Purple Rose artists, a call was made for the hiring of designated human resources personnel, something that the Purple Rose has since done. The statement was made that artists did not feel comfortable reporting incidents with the structure that had then been in place because there was no environment of confidentiality.

Guy Sanville

An example of this occurred in a recent apprentice class. In a letter written by Noah S. Hurwitz, senior counsel of Nachtlaw, to the Purple Rose administration, the experience of an apprentice who had been sexually harassed by another apprentice in the program was related.

When she reported it, Sanville ordered the apprentice to meet with him and the accused apprentice even though she said it made her feel uncomfortable. She insisted that she was asking for support and confidentiality, not confrontation and potential reconciliation.

“He forced the apprentice to have a meeting with him, Ms. (Michelle) Mountain, (the apprentice chief) and the other apprentice,” The letter wrote. “During the meeting in question, which heaped terrible anxiety upon the complainant apprentice, Mr. Sanville told the apprentice that if she ‘ever (told) anyone that associated with (her) about the meeting, (she) would be fired.”

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it is illegal for employers to retaliate against employees or applicants for “asserting their rights to be free from employment discrimination, including harassment.” Reporting harassment is considered a protected activity. It is unlawful to fire or threaten someone for communicating about employment discrimination, including harassment.

On their website, Leeds Brown Law also points out that it is illegal to retaliate “even if your sexual assault or harassment complaint is found to be without merit as long as you had a good faith belief that it occurred.”

In the fall of 2021, the Purple Rose, after disbanding its apprenticeship program, did hire a human resources firm. Hubbard said they interviewed several different firms and then brought one on to go over their policies and procedures and to make sure everything is up to date.

“It will really help us in the future with any new policies we want to create and with onboarding new employees,” Hubbard said.

She also said they can be used as conflict resolution, though she hopes that anyone with a complaint will first handle the situation internally.

“Please come to us with any concerns,” Hubbard said. “We want to be fully transparent. We want you to be able to come to your supervisor or anyone in management, anyone on the board if you have an issue. If that is not possible, then we have this other action—you can contact our new HR firm and have them help guide us through this process.”

Dark Night performance takes on dark overtones

The culmination of the apprentice program is advertised (to apprentices and to donors) to be the Dark Night program. Apprentices are put in charge of nearly every aspect of it.

What they are not in charge of, or allowed to have boundaries about, is the content of the scripts that they create. Sanville teaches that the most “honest” work comes from trauma and so he asks the apprentices to share their traumas. Apprentices are asked to share their worst life experiences from sexual to psychological abuse.

Stetler talked about the Dark Night process. They said they had been looking forward to the Dark Night because it would be their one chance to perform as all other understudies for female performers had already been lined up.

“In our first meeting, we had to talk about our deepest betrayal, which for me, was that my mom didn’t write a letter to my brother and me before she died,” Stetler said. “The second meeting was that we needed to flip that portrayal and make it funny.”

They said that the rehearsal brought up all sorts of emotional trauma and that neither Sanville nor Mountain are therapists.

“There should be safety around this,” Stetler said.

The apprentices are also asked to journal about their experiences and turn them in. Some have reported that when Sanville was not pleased with what they wrote or if they struggled with sharing trauma, he would yell at and humiliate them in front of the rest of the class.

In the NachtLaw letter, Hurwitz wrote that, “Several of my clients found that it caused them psychological harm, and yet they lack the time or income to seek mental health treatment for the wounds that are opened during this dark night in their lives.”

“Guy isn’t trained to wield the amount of power he has at the Rose and he has been allowed to do it so dangerously for so long that he must be stopped,” Buck said.

Terms like “gaslighting” and “grooming” used to describe theatre environment

Throughout the dozens of hours of interviews and the dozens of people spoken to, several words and phrases were repeated: grooming, love-bombing, cult-like environment.

Robin, a former apprentice who has asked that their real name not be used, said the first half of the apprenticeship was great.

“It was wonderful—rainbows and unicorns and butterflies,” Robin said. “It was amazing. I was so happy to be there, I met Jeff Daniels, I was eager and excited. They had warned us it would be a lot of cleaning, so I went in knowing that.”

They said the other reason it was great was that they had buckets of praise poured on them, telling them how great they were—that their apprentice class was the best ever while the previous one was the worst ever.

“I later asked a member of the class before if they did something similar and they said yes—the first half was love bombs and the last class sucked,” Robin said. “They were totally setting us up, grooming us. I ate it up. I love praise so this is so great. Not only do I get to work here, but they love me and I’m doing great.”

Jowi Estava said that she believes Sanville chooses a favorite apprentice in every class and the apprentices are pitted against each other.

Estava said it took her years after leaving the Purple Rose to be able to process her experience. She still experiences PTSD and struggles with her experience there. She said that while the Purple Stories have brought up old trauma, it has also helped her to see that she wasn’t crazy.

“I know I was being gaslit and I know I’m not alone in my experience,” Estava said. “But it is also extremely painful to know that it means it is a pattern. Who knows how many people have gone through this?”

Estava described the Purple Rose as being a bit like a cult.

“That all starts with Guy Sanville,” Estava said. “Nearly everyone in that building is a woman who used to be an apprentice. That’s grooming. There’s no other way to say that. He is grooming young women to stay together and support him and never say no to him and do whatever he wants. All roads lead to protecting Guy Sanville there.”

Click here for Part 7: Theater touts changes made since the pandemic shut-down

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