TW: s-xual harassment, verbal abuse, threats of physical violence
Do NOT work for RTOP Theatre (Regional Theatre of the Palouse). No one should go through what our South Pacific cast just went through this spring. In my 12+ years of professional theatre, this was the worst theatre gig of my life. This is a long post, so if you read nothing further, the thesis is: No one deserves to go through the emotional and verbal abuse, s-xual harassment, threats of physical violence, isolation of having no transportation and being stuck at home, and the psychological turmoil we experienced on this contract. This list of grievances - compiled by the professional actors brought in for South Pacific - is divided into categories: Rehearsal, Communication, Physical Safety, Unprofessionalism, and Housing.
----REHEARSAL
-The first day of rehearsal went an hour over the scheduled time without acknowledgement or apology because of the director’s lack of preparation, which disrespected and violated our time.
-We did not have a choreographer which caused CHAOS when multiple production team members tried to create movement on the spot. This was a huge waste of time.
-The director repeatedly arrived at rehearsal unprepared and without the basic understanding of who is in each scene and when. This meant we had to re-block scenes and waste time because the director didn't know which characters entered or exited in specific places.
-Stage management did not maintain the integrity of the show by tracking all its moving parts.
-Stage management did not consistently communicate via daily scheduling emails which meant we did not know what to prioritize during our off-time and would show up to rehearsal to find out the schedule had changed without notice. We were also not given advance notice for outside visitors like a photographer or reporter, but were expected to be in full makeup and wigs for these events.
----COMMUNICATION
-When the lead actress stepped inside the “Wash That Man” shower for the first time during a rehearsal, the walls of the shower wobbled and shook as if it was about to collapse on her. That night during notes, the director berated the lead actress in front of the entire cast for “not checking her props before the run of the show,” which made her cry. The entire cast was so uncomfortable because it is the production team's responsibility to create a safe set. The director's outburst was inappropriate and misguided.
-The director said, "I hate it when people don't come to rehearsal when they have a little cold,” about an actor who was seriously ill. His words got back to our sick peer who was literally bed-ridden with bronchitis, which made them feel incredibly belittled and angry. The director also made no effort to get them to a doctor for help. If having a full cast at all times is a high priority for the director, it is their responsibility to hire understudies or swings to keep rehearsals seamless when actors get sick.
-The director repeatedly lectured the members attending rehearsal about how angry he was when people weren't there, including people with excused absences. Several actors had excused absences built into their rehearsal schedules, and these absences were established before the rehearsal process started. The director’s angry speeches about people missing rehearsal made no sense when the only people absent were those with pre-approved absences. If scheduling is truly such a high priority for the director, they have the power to not cast people who don’t have full availability for rehearsals. Lecturing the cast members who were there was a waste of our time and accomplished nothing.
-The director raised his voice at the actors in rehearsal for "talking over me" and threatened, "Do not test me today, I mean it, someone is going to get hurt." The stage manager did not consistently announce the start and end of our breaks, so when the director accused us of “talking over him,” it caused confusion because we did not know rehearsal was back in session. The director was so agitated and speaking so harshly that the cast felt he was legitimately threatening violence.
-The director reprimanded the female actors during notes at rehearsal for their "poopy” scene change energy. He criticized us and used condescending language in response to our improvisations during a section of the play when the ensemble did not have dialogue. There was no active direction or constructive criticism to help us further the storytelling. The use of the word “poopy” was rude, confusing, and unprofessional.
-The director disregarded the actors’ request to change a backing music track: "I don't think you people are LISTENING to me, I don't want to cut the measures!" The actors felt shut down and shut out of the collaborative creative process. Shutting down the line of communication made the actors feel demeaned, and as a result, the show suffered.
----PHYSICAL SAFETY
-The director insisted the cast wear their full costumes for an entire week before opening the show, but did not launder anything, to our knowledge, until after the first week of shows. It posed a genuine health risk to be required to wear tight-fitted clothes around private parts for thirteen consecutive runs of the show without laundering. Doing such a physical show in such tight quarters made costumes start smelling badly within the first week, causing discomfort for the actors on and off stage. Some actors took their undergarments home to wash during their off-time because they felt so uncomfortable putting on dirty clothes. It is the production team’s responsibility to provide a clean and sanitary work place.
-The actors had to repeatedly request dance lift calls before rehearsals. Lift calls felt like an afterthought for stage management during the rehearsal process, and because lift calls were not built into the rehearsal schedule, we felt like our safety was not a priority.
-At one rehearsal before the run of the show, the director commanded the actors to do the dance lift call somewhere other than the stage so the show could start sooner, saying, "Don't do it on the stage. Don't do it here. Do it in the lobby or the green room." The director put his own agenda to start the show sooner above the actors’ safety. Suggesting the backstage area as an alternative was inappropriate and unsafe because it did not replicate the location of the high-risk activity from the show. This alternative put the actors at risk for injury, and stage management did not advocate for the actors’ safety.
-During a rehearsal, the director whispered in a male actor's ear, "Those shorts look great on you, but you need to butch it up." This is s-xual harassment.
-During costume fittings on day one, the director told male cast members that their "body hair is s-xy" and he "can tell why you like to wear form-fitting clothing." This is s-xual harassment and an abuse of power. It immediately disintegrates trust between the director and the cast when the actors fear their bodies are being looked at inappropriately by someone in leadership.
-RTOP does not have an HR department, so there was no protocol for reporting abuse. This creates a culture without accountability where harm goes unreported and gets swept under the rug. It is our opinion that the director’s consistently inappropriate behavior would not be permitted to continue if an HR department were holding the company to a proper standard of professionalism and safety for all employees.
----UNPROFESSIONALISM
-The director frequently hyper-fixated on giving general, unspecific notes to the entire group, for example, “Every single actor broke the fourth wall tonight,” or, “Every actor delivered lines upstage.” The director was visibly agitated when giving the same notes multiple nights in a row, but when asked for a specific example of how or when to apply the note, neither stage management nor the director could provide one, saying, “I can’t think of an example,” or, “Here and there.” The director could have guided and directed specific people, instead of lecturing the entire group, wasting our time with unspecific feedback. The cast cannot mind-read what moments the director is talking about; it is stage management and the director's job to move the show forward. It was unthoughtful and unhelpful for the production team to not write these specific moments down.
-When our peer was ill with bronchitis, stage management volunteered to bring them a Covid test, but stage management suddenly ceased contact with them and never brought them a test. The sick person needed a Covid test, but they were physically stranded at home, ill, without a test, and without a car to go get a test themself. They were vulnerable in a moment of need when they were trying to be proactive and protect themself and the rest of the company.
-The understudy for Nellie never had a rehearsal in the space with the full cast, and then received 19 hours notice that she was on for the following night’s full dress rehearsal. Without a proper intimacy rehearsal, doing stage kisses with the male lead felt very vulnerable and scary. Without any rehearsal to practice scenes and songs on the set with the casting changes for the lead female and the ensemble tracks, the rehearsal felt chaotic for much of the cast.
-Outside of rehearsal hours, the director accused an actor of trying to sabotage the show by putting lipstick on the leading actress’s dress. A local actor heard this information and informed the accused actor what they heard. The director then denied this allegation to both actors’ faces, yelling, "I did not say that! I did not say that!" He grabbed the accused actor into an un-consenting hug, raised his hand as if to strike the local actor, screamed “I hate this cast!” and stormed out of the building. This accusation made the actor feel attacked, confused, enraged, and extremely unsafe. They had a panic attack because of the director’s actions, and felt dread every single time they had to go back to the theatre for the rest of the process. The director never apologized for slandering the character and reputation of this actor, nor for lying to their face. The yelling and threat of physical violence from the director deeply shook the cast, losing even further trust in him as our leader, and made the theatre feel even more unsafe.
-Stage management emailed the cast the same night that the director screamed “I hate this cast” in front of many members of the cast. The email instructed us to “keep our negativity to ourselves.” There was no mention of the director’s outbursts or threat of violence that very same day. This was infuriating to the cast and felt like the ultimate example of hypocrisy and gaslighting: silencing actors from speaking their feelings even in the privacy of their dressing room, while the director says and does harmful, erratic things. The cast felt outraged at the mistreatment of this innocent actor.
-The director told a local actor they were no longer allowed to perform in the show after they missed a few rehearsals due to severe family sickness at home. This made the cast felt angry and upset for that actor who had put in weeks of work as a member of our cast family. It felt unkind to kick him out of the show when the director was aware of the actor’s personal situation at home. It felt especially hypocritical to expel this actor for family sickness when the director himself missed several rehearsals from personal sickness.
----HOUSING
-The out-of-town talent was locked away from each other in the same house, divided by floors, and were emailed a “house rules” Google document which forbade socializing in the house, including socializing with other cast members. The company waited to share these rules until after the out-of-town actors had paid for their flights and signed their contracts, which felt deliberate and underhanded. We feel that the company’s lack of transparency took advantage of the actors, and that we did not know what we signed up for until it was too late.
-When the out-of-town actors were told that we were not allowed to socialize with our castmates in the home, it made us feel trapped, and for some of us, caused extreme depression. The locked door from the main floor to the basement meant that the women had to walk outside and down stairs in the snow to simply do laundry, which felt unsafe and frustrating. Our castmates were the only people we knew in the town; unwinding and relaxing together was the only way we survived such a volatile rehearsal process. Additionally, building personal relationships off stage increased our connection and relationships on stage. These house rules felt baseless and without merit.
-The out-of-town talent did not have access to a company car. We had to walk miles through rain, snow, and cold conditions to get around, which impacted our health. In a hilly and unwalkable town like Pullman, it was unreasonable and unfair to leave professionals without a way to get around town besides relying on a designated volunteer driver, who was sometimes unreliable.
-The designated driver did not have a cell phone, so we had to be in standby-mode by our cell phones, waiting for the designated driver to contact them to set their pick-up times; this inconsistency caused stress and frustration. On a few occasions, the designated driver did not call or forgot to pick up artists, which impacted the mental health and preparation of the performers to be present at the theatre for the full pre-show warm-ups.
-When presented with contracts, the out-of-town actors were told the theatre was “a four block walk” from cast housing, but in actuality, the downtown area to the housing area was three huge hills apart (a 5 minute car ride, but at least a 20 minute walk to get up the hills). We were provided rides to and from housing for work purposes only and there was no set schedule in place to support our time management.
-The out-of-town talent was not allowed to have alcohol in their homes, which felt controlling and unreasonable. As long as the integrity of the show is maintained, we feel it is no one’s business how we spend our off-time. This rule is ludicrous to impose on of-age adults.
-Several out-of-town actors were housed in the basement of the director’s home, which created a huge work/life privacy issue. It is industry standard to provide separate cast housing, which can include a host family, but these actors felt uncomfortable living in such close quarters to the director, and felt like they had no safe, private place to fully unwind.
-The out-of-town talent was told no guests were allowed to visit the home. The director and associate director were aware that cast members were socializing with each other in the home, and they even knew about one actor’s overnight guest, but they said nothing to any of the actors. This rule was never enforced for the first month of the contract, until the associate director cornered one cast member after a show in front of their out-of-town family and partner to criticize them for breaking the house rules, and forced their partner to stay somewhere else that night. His petty actions caused the actor to cry, have a panic attack, throw up, lose sleep, and forfeited any remaining shred of joy of doing the show.
-Four out-of-town actors had a meeting with the associate director the day after he cornered the actor about the house rules and playing favoritism. The consequence of his actions, as well as the director’s irrational behavior for weeks, were that the actors were fed up and ready to leave the contract early. Our concerns were written down, and we were told to give the associate director 24 hours to share these concerns with the director and meet back up with him. We never heard a word after that meeting, which made us feel unseen, disrespected, and like things would never change.
We contacted previous out of town actors brought in for RTOP shows, and learned that we are not the first to experience the unprofessionalism and patterns of disrespect of this theatre. I believe this theatre should cease producing theatre until all the aforementioned harmful behaviors and practices are eradicated.
