AMERICAN THEATRE | Artists Pull Play From Cleveland Play House Over Mishandled Assault

Weeks after Cleveland Play House (CPH) introduced it was canceling the February world premiere of I’m Back Now: Returning to Cleveland, playwright Charly Evon Simpson issued an announcement on Feb. 8 saying that she the truth is had pulled the rights to her play, in tandem with director Stori Ayers, who resigned in protest over the best way the theatre dealt with a case of sexual assault. In an announcement on Twitter, Simpson wrote, “I said NO to having my play done at Cleveland Play House…I said NO to my play being the site of and excuse for further harm. I said YES to prioritizing the health, well-being, and safety of the I’m Back Now company.”

The story first unfolded on social media, as Ayers wrote in an Instagram publish that an actor within the I’m Back Now firm had been sexually assaulted in an elevator at Reserve Square, an house constructing the place CPH was offering housing for visiting artists. She stated that CPH’s management group requested the actor to return to rehearsal after their assault with out informing Ayers. In an e-mail to the theatre’s interim creative director, Mark Cuddy, that Ayers shared on Instagram, Ayers wrote that CPH workers had not reported the assault to Ayers as a result of “there was an assumption that the actor who had been assaulted didn’t want me to know, when in fact she did.” Ayers wrote {that a} stage supervisor, in addition to CPH firm supervisor Betty B. Brooks and creative producer Derek Green, tried to “maintain unsought discretion” that put “the onus of care management” on the survivor. For their half, the survivor, Jordan Taylor, instructed American Theatre they believed that CPH management had knowledgeable Ayers of the incident. Brooks and Goodman didn’t reply to requests for remark.

“I needed to be a part of the care management for one of our actors after a sexual assault was reported,” Ayers wrote in her e-mail to Cuddy. “I am responsible for fostering and creating a safe environment for all of the artists to do their best work.”

Ayers resigned from her directorial place on Jan. 15, the identical day that Simpson pulled the rights to the play. “Learning that the actor was required to continue rehearsing demonstrated a lack of care and understanding for the impacts of sexual assault,” Ayers wrote within the e-mail, during which she claimed that CPH wouldn’t present different housing for the actor, although she was assaulted within the house advanced. Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) later ordered CPH to offer new housing for Taylor after an apparently unrelated break-in occurred at Reserve Square the day after the assault, based on Ayers’s assertion. The manufacturing’s AEA deputy reported the break-in to the union, prompting the relocation of the artists. (AEA has said that they can’t touch upon energetic grievances, of which there are two involving I’m Back Now and CPH.)

In an announcement launched Feb. 10, CPH provided their very own model of occasions, explaining that the assault occurred on a Thursday and that Ayers realized of the incident throughout a Saturday rehearsal. In their assertion, CPH claims they “began to move the entire cast out of the apartment complex the following day,” Sunday. CPH’s assertion doesn’t point out the break-in or the involvement of AEA. CPH stated by way of e-mail that that they had no additional feedback on the matter.

Ayers additional alleged that Cuddy didn’t contact Taylor to verify on their well-being or supply an apology. In an interview, Taylor (who makes use of each she/her and so they/them pronouns) instructed American Theatre that CPH’s human sources division didn’t attain out to them till after the I’m Back Now firm had met with the CPH board, and that when the division did, they gave the flawed date for the assault. American Theatre reviewed emails confirming this error; human sources division members Merlin DeTardo and Elaine Lyons didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Taylor, who has labored with CPH in a number of capacities over a three-year interval, stated in an interview that the theatre has exhibited a sample of harassment and mistreatment of Black artists, notably Black ladies and trans and gender non-conforming (TGNC) artists. Taylor got here to CPH as a member of Case Western Reserve University’s MFA Acting program, which is housed at CPH. In 2021, whereas they have been nonetheless a pupil, Taylor additionally turned an worker of CPH as a member of a newly shaped fairness, variety, and inclusion work group, a singular place for a pupil of the CWRU/CPH program. “I wanted to advocate for MFA students,” Taylor stated of her time within the group, including that college students in this system had “a lack of autonomy.”

While they have been a pupil and worker at CPH, Taylor stated they skilled “gender-based and power-based violence” involving CPH’s director of creative inclusion, who used “their position of power to manipulate and impact me in harmful ways.” (Taylor didn’t identify the person in query, and CPH doesn’t at the moment record a director of creative inclusion on their web site.) Shortly earlier than graduating, Taylor stated they filed a harassment report with the human sources division.

“They handled it very poorly,” Taylor stated of the method. “They were not transparent.” She stated that the incident and the mismanagement of her report displays CPH’s “white supremacy culture of protecting image above all else, at the expense of transparency and community.”

Taylor graduated from the CWRU/CPH MFA program in May 2022, simply as former creative director Laura Kepley was making ready to step down; Cuddy was named interim creative director in June 2022. Cuddy didn’t reply to a number of follow-up questions concerning Taylor’s accusations in opposition to the theatre’s management or CPH’s Feb. 10 assertion. The assertion concludes by saying that CPH has begun “a process of reviewing our internal policies and procedures, based on the recommendations of an already completed investigation conducted by an external human resources firm paid by CPH.” CPH wouldn’t identify the human sources agency when requested. The investigation concluded lower than a month after Simpson pulled the rights to her play.

CPH stated of their assertion that upon studying of the assault, they “offered to assist the actor in filing a police report, but the actor declined.” Taylor stated that after months of working to implement tradition adjustments as a member of the EDI group, which facilitated anti-racist and anti-bias trainings, they have been disheartened that going to the police was the theatre’s first choice. “From [my] experiences as a Black person with the police, why would I want to talk to them?” Taylor stated. Taylor did, nevertheless, file an incident report with CPH to assist the theatre get out of their leasing settlement with Reserve Square, which they stated the theatre had been attempting to do for a while.

Additionally, CPH introduced in a Jan. 12 Facebook publish that the theatre had acquired a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant to “support the production of world premiere family drama I’m Back Now: Returning to Cleveland.” CPH instructed American Theatre that they haven’t but acquired the NEA funds and that they’ll withdraw the request as a result of the manufacturing will not be occurring as scheduled.

For Taylor, the I’m Back Now course of encapsulates years of wrestle at an establishment the place the chances have been stacked in opposition to them. “I felt culturally isolated, underrepresented, taken advantage of, and disregarded,” Taylor stated of their time at CPH.

Ayers stated that Simpson in the end made the choice to tug the rights to I’m Back Now “in agreement and solidarity” with the I’m Back Now firm. They each imagine that the choice disrupts “white supremacy theatremaking culture.”

“I said no to sending an actress back into rehearsal after a sexual assault,” Ayers wrote. “I said no to working with status quo leadership that doesn’t value Black women artists.”

On January 23, Ideastream Public Media, an NPR affiliate, reported that CPH had canceled their scheduled premiere of I’m Back Now not lengthy after canceling a vacation manufacturing, Light It Up!, in October. CPH canceled Light It Up!, which it commissioned in 2021, “at the request of the creators.” CPH initially introduced the manufacturing’s cancelation with out stating that Simpson had pulled the rights to the play.

Simpson, a winner of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, beforehand spoke about I’m Back Now with CPH audiences in a 2021 digital occasion. The play, which was commissioned by CPH’s Roe Green Fund for New American Plays, examines the legacy of slavery in Cleveland and is impressed by the lifetime of Sara Lucy Bagby, the final particular person prosecuted beneath the Fugitive Slave Act. Simpson was among the many first group of writers to be commissioned by the Roe Green Fund.

I’m Back Now was initially scheduled for CPH’s 2021-22 season, however was postponed on account of public well being issues raised by the COVID-19 Omicron variant. At the time, members of the CPH/CWRU MFA appearing program’s class of 2022 have been forged within the play as a part of their residency at CPH. Some of the scholars returned for the deliberate 2023 manufacturing, together with Taylor, who wished to work with Ayers after the director resigned a creative directing fellowship on the theatre early again in 2020.

“I wanted to have that experience, because Stori would be the second Black director in my entire career, in my life,” Taylor stated.

Ayers, an actor and director who co-founded [RARE] Lotus Productions, was beforehand a creative director fellow at CPH in 2020. In her assertion on Instagram, Ayers stated she had resigned her fellowship in response to the CPH board’s want to retract an announcement of anti-racism the theatre had issued after the police homicide of George Floyd that 12 months. Ayers’s sudden departure, Taylor stated, was “devastating for me, particularly as a Black artist, because I had never seen that kind of representation for Black women.”

In her assertion, Ayers described her return to CPH to work on I’m Back Now for 2023 as “a restorative justice attempt.” According to Ayers, CPH is now withholding fee to artists concerned with I’m Back Now. Taylor has additionally requested restitution from CPH to cowl the prices of remedy for each the sexual assault and CPH’s dealing with of the difficulty. CPH didn’t reply to requests for touch upon these issues.

In 2021, Ayers was directing Dominique Morisseau’s Paradise Blue on the Geffen Playhouse when Morisseau pulled the rights to the play due to verbal abuse by some forged members in opposition to Black ladies on the artistic group, and due to the best way theatre dealt with the scenario. Ayers stated by a consultant that she has no additional feedback on her time at CPH. But in her Instagram publish, Ayers acknowledged the sample of negligence at legacy theatre establishments, including that standing her floor as an artist protects each herself and her colleagues.

“They didn’t cancel anything,” Ayers and Simpson wrote of their assertion. “We said no.”

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