Community Theatres Need to Stop Protecting Their Problematic Men

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder

Years ago, “Leslie” was set to appear in a musical at her local community theatre in Connecticut. This particular show was one of Leslie’s personal favorites, she was playing her dream role as the female lead and she was working with a theatre she had wanted to work with for a while. Everything should have been perfect. Except it wasn’t, because she had to endure constant sexual harassment from her scene partner who happened to also be the romantic lead in the show.

What started as inappropriate comments soon led to emails and texts after rehearsal and unwanted physical contact. Leslie reported his behavior to the stage manager, nothing was done and the harassment continued.

She reported it to the director, was told that the actor would be spoken to, but nothing ever happened.

The breaking point came on opening night. Towards the end of the show, Leslie had to share a kiss with this man. As the scene arrived, Leslie began her embrace with the actor except this time, his hand, which usually stayed on the middle of her back, was significantly lower, on the top of her buttocks. The actor had a firm hold on Leslie and he proceeded to extend the kiss beyond what they rehearsed for a few more seconds.

After they had taken their bows, incredibly upset, Leslie went to both the director and the producer of the show and told them about the incident. This time the director and producer took action, pulled the actor aside, and addressed his behavior. He apologized to Leslie and promised not to have any contact with her anytime they were offstage.

Once the production was over, Leslie was told by another local performer that this wasn’t the first time this actor had behaved this way with his romantic scene partners and that Leslie would not be the last. Sure enough, the very next year, this actor did the same thing to his love interest in another show.

I asked her if this man had been committing the same acts of sexual harassment in multiple productions, add to the fact that theatre officials were aware of it, why was he cast over and over again?

“He’s the best tenor performer in our area,” she told me. “They need him for every production. They’ll keep casting him whether he auditions for them or not.”

And she was right. Right up to the COVID-19 shutdown, he had been cast in multiple shows at that theatre.

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Throughout my years of both being involved in community theatre and covering it, I’ve seen constant examples of theatre groups tolerating and ignoring the bad behavior of their male talent. Much of this is due to the low male turnout for auditions, so if a theatre can keep a talented male performer happy, then they can count on them to keep coming back to be in more productions.

While being late to rehearsals or missing off-book dates is one thing, this practice has led to more serious issues like Leslie’s story earlier. Often, when issues like these are reported, community theatre officials balk at taking any real action out of fear they may lose a male performer. Even more often, these theatre officials aren’t qualified to handle such claims, either from not receiving training or not knowing having the resources to utilize, so the bad behavior continues or gets worse.

Almost every single allegations of sexual misconduct in these theatres include details of how the victims reported the behavior to theatre officials, yet nothing was done. I spoke to one former director in Ohio who told me that he was instructed to not do anything about an actor who had been harassing a female co-star because they needed him to play Jean Valjean in their upcoming production of Les Misérables. A local actress in CA told me she had been assured by a director that an actor who made unwanted advances on her after rehearsal would never be allowed back in the theatre again, yet was cast in the very next production.

And because these theatres don’t properly handle these claims, many times sexual misconduct goes unreported.

Community theatre officials need to stop putting the value of male talent above the safety of being in their productions. If these men are putting female talent at risk or are constantly committing acts of sexual misconduct, those men need to be removed from the theatre community immediately and reported to local authorities.

I shouldn’t even have to write columns like these but it seems that many local theatre groups aren’t getting that message.