the week of february 11-17, 2023

pay and protect artists & front-of-house workers you soulless ghouls

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an update on last week’s cleveland play house debacle

Last week, I wrote about playwright Charly Evon Simpson and director Stori Ayers publicly challenging the Cleveland Play House’s narrative around the cancellation of the world premiere of I’m Back Now. In a series of social media posts, Simpson and Ayers explained that they withdrew from the production after the theatre's leadership grossly mishandled a report of sexual assault from an actor.

This week, the Cleveland Play House issued a public statement responding to the allegations, acknowledging “missteps” in their handling of the incident and apologizing for not taking swifter action.

But there are multiple red flags in the CPH’s narrative of events. Let’s look at how they characterize the sexual assault:

“Out of respect for those affected by the assault, we have not publicly addressed the specifics of the incident. In light of recent reports, however, we would like to provide some context for the aspersions being circulated. Last month, an artist involved with I'm Back Now was forcibly kissed by a person not affiliated with CPH in an elevator of an apartment complex where CPH had housed its visiting artists for 11 years.”

The chosen language — “forcibly kissed by a person not affiliated with CPH” — is deliberately minimizing the severity of the attack and the theatre’s culpability. It also invalidates the expressed sincerity in the first sentence: Cleveland Play House respects victims until it’s legally necessary to publicly undermine them.

The CPH statement also recounts the convoluted series of events leading to Simpson rescinding the rights to her play:

“When the show's director learned of the traumatic event and CPH's responses to it during a rehearsal about 48 hours after the incident, the director conveyed disappointment to CPH management. At this point CPH began to move the entire cast out of the apartment complex the following day. CPH also apologized and offered to hire different CPH personnel to coordinate with the show and to request a Board-level investigation. Numerous CPH Board members then participated in a lengthy audio-video call in which the play's director, playwright, and other artists described their concerns. The artists were asked what CPH could do. There were no responses to CPH's offers or requests for what else could be done at this point. Unfortunately, the show's rights were pulled by the playwright later that day.”

I don’t like how this puts the onus for the cancellation on Charly, especially when the statement does not expound on the nature of “CPH’s offers and requests.” After multiple days of extreme negligence, it’s understandable that the artists would not trust CPH to guarantee their safety going forward. Perpetuating harm against artists of color — and then expecting those artists to devise solutions to rectify that harm — is a familiar failure of predominantly white institutions.

The CPH statement concludes with the theatre expressing heartbreak that “the community of artists involved with the production have felt let down and unsafe…This is a time for us to do better.”

Here’s one way Cleveland Play House can do better: pay those artists. Actors’ Equity Association confirmed last week that there are two open grievances over non-payment to the two dozen actors and production staff of I’m Back Now.

Stori Ayers also responded to the CPH statement, telling cleveland.com: “The lying, misrepresenting of facts and fudging the timeline is not surprising. We knew they would do that. Clean it up. That’s what PR does. It’s not what leadership who cares about people does.”

Ayers also noted that CPH’s decision to publicly diminish the assault has “cut deep. Omitting everything else that happened was an intentional violent act. [None of the artists] expected them to misrepresent and downplay what happened in the elevator. That was evil. It was heartless.”

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what happened to that playbill story

Last week, I linked to Margaret Hall’s Playbill report “Physical Assault Vomit in the Aisles, Stalking in the Streets: Why Audience Misbehavior Has Gotten Out of Hand” which detailed the unconscionable violence and harassment endured by front-of-house staffs. I read the piece last Thursday after it had been circulating for a few days, but by the time this newsletter went out on Friday, the article had been removed from Playbill’s website. (Someone re-posted the original piece in Google Docs.) Here’s an excerpt:

Tessie, a former actor turned front of house worker, began working at a family friendly musical in the winter of 2021. Since beginning the position, they have been “spat on, shoved, had my ass slapped, and been screamed at more times than I could count.” Still, they consider themselves lucky; one of their coworkers was shoved down a staircase by an irate patron, resulting in a serious hip injury.

Remarks Tessie, “It’s terrifying. Since when does taking tickets and leading people to their seats involve blunt force trauma?” They recalled once, a patron spat on them after being told to pull up their mask when face coverings were still required during the pandemic: “I mean, honestly, how was I supposed to respond to that? I just stood there dumbfounded, unable to understand what had just happened. Like, isn’t that technically a biological weapon threat?”

So what happened? On Monday, The Daily Beast posted an interview with Playbill CEO Philip Birsh, who said he scrubbed the article for being “too salacious” before unceremoniously throwing his editorial staff under the bus:

“We want people to go to the theater. This piece exaggerated the issue in my opinion. I’m a numbers guy. I know numbers. I know the overwhelming numbers of people at the theater are having an enjoyable time.”

Birsh said he first grew concerned about the report after his 22-year-old daughter raised the issue with him, followed by several industry figures who he declined to name.

The CEO said he has personally asked Playbill editor Diep Tran and the article’s writer, Margaret Hall, to “recalibrate” the piece. “It was a mistake, and it doesn’t reflect people’s experience of going to the theater,” added Birsh, whose family has controlled Playbill for half a century. “Speaking in terms of clickbait, it’s fantastic but it’s not reflecting reality. It is reflecting a very thin layer of it. It’s not up to my standards.

The broken washing machine in my apartment’s basement has a more effective spin cycle than this man. For a self-proclaimed numbers guy, Birsh fails to provide any hard data to support his claims: surveys, statistics, evidence he’s actually spoken to a house manager once or even twice. His condescension of Diep Tran and Margaret Hall, two rigorous journalists, is gross and cavalier. Forcing the publication of a “recalibrated” puff piece glossing over the critical danger of front-of-house roles serves one stakeholder only: Broadway theatre owners.

Audience misbehavior is not unique to New York. Anyone who reads nightly house reports knows that front-of-house staffs across the country endure regular harassment and unacceptable contact with human bodily fluids. But who cares how many hourly employees are exploited and abused as long as people are buying tickets, right? Influential entities would rather engage in censorship than take action to prevent the necessity of these exposés, i.e. wielding their power to create and uphold humane working conditions. As Regina Victor wrote in Rescripted, it’s essential to refocus this conversation back on the health and safety of these marginalized workers:

I hope that we can recognize how witnessing these front of house stories could generate a positive conflict that has the potential to catalyze necessary change. I hope my fellow journalists  with more investigative power will pick up where Hall’s brilliant journalism left off, and continue to amplify this issue. When members of our community tell us that their jobs are unsustainable, and even dangerous, we need to listen. Full stop. 

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in-person theatre

• The world premiere of Suzan-Lori Parks’ The Harder They Come is now in previews at the Public Theater. Tony Taccone and Sergio Trujillo co-direct the new musical adaptation of the titular 1972 movie featuring songs by Jamaican reggae star Jimmy Cliff.

• Sami Ibrahim, Laura Lomas, and Sabrina Mahfouz’s adaptation of Metamorphoses is now playing at Seattle Rep. The modern interpretation of Ovid’s epic poems of transformation is performed by a quartet of actors and directed by Shana Cooper.

• Joe Murray and Joe Robertson’s The Jungle runs February 18 - March 19 at St. Ann’s Warehouse. The immersive production, set at an improvised refugee camp in Calais, France, is directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin. (Following its Brooklyn run, the production will transfer to DC for a three-week co-presentation from Shakespeare Theatre Company and Woolly Mammoth.)

• Adam Rapp, Justin Levine, and Jamestown Revival’s The Outsiders begins performances February 19th at La Jolla Playhouse. The world premiere musical adaptation of the S.E. Hinton novel and Francis Ford Coppola film is directed by Danya Taymor.

• Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul starts previews February 21st at Signature Theatre in Virginia. The suspenseful drama “tracing the human cost of U.S. immigration policy and the legacy of our longest war” is directed by Shadi Ghaheri.

• Emily Zemba’s Superstitions runs February 23 - March 5 at Oklahoma City Repertory. Kelly Kerwin directs the unconventional dark comedy chronicling “an off-kilter day in the life of eight strangers as their lives intersect in comical and bizarre ways.”

• Liliana Padilla’s How to Defend Yourself starts previews February 22nd at New York Theatre Workshop. Set in a DIY self-defense workshop for college students, the sharp, funny, brutally honest new play exploring “what we want, how to ask for it, and the violator and violated inside us all” is co-directed by Padilla, Rachel Chavkin, and Steph Paul, who also serves as movement director.

• King Lear runs February 23 - April 2 at DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company. Simon Godwin directs Patrick Page as “the once-revered king caught in an emotional hurricane ravaging his home, head, and heart.”

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the regional theatre game of thrones

• Michael John Garcés is stepping down as artistic director of Cornerstone Theater Company. He has led the community-forward Los Angeles ensemble theater for sixteen years.

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end of an era

• The New Ohio Theatre is closing after 30 years. The downtown institution — and its various programs and initiatives, including the annual Ice Factory Festival — are shuttering due to “Robert Lyons’ intention to step down as Artistic Director, the shifting landscape and dynamics of the field, and increased financial pressures.”

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award season

• Playwright/performer Kristina Wong and director Charlotte Brathwaite are this year’s Doris Duke Artist Award winners. Each artist will receive $550,000. (That is not a typo.)

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things i read this week when i wasn’t writing my first program note in three years (for this!)

• Helen Shaw’s gorgeous remembrance of actor Mikéah Ernest Jennings, who unexpectedly passed away last year at age 43. As Shaw writes, “A fixture of New York’s experimental-theatre scene, [he] did not ‘become’ his characters; he stood, somehow, next to them, amused and delighted.” (The New Yorker)

FYI: If you do not have any hot Saturday night plans, I’m going to be on a virtual panel February 18th at 7pm ET entitled “New Models of Theatre Criticism” as part of Day Eight’s Rethinking Theatre Criticism conference. American Theatre’s Rob Weinert-Kendt is moderating a conversation with me, Jose Solís (Did They Like It, BIPOC Theater Critics Lab, Token Theatre Friends), Nicole Hertvik (DC Theater Arts), and Patrick Flynn (The Original Cast).