About 30 people picketed on a grassy boulevard in front of the Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company on Saturday, protesting the theater administration's response to child sex abuse lawsuits by former students — including an attempt to recover court costs from one of the victims.
The protesters included some of the 17 plaintiffs who have accused five former members of the theater's staff of sexually abusing them in the 1970s and 1980s. A jury awarded Laura Stearns, whose case was the first to go to trial, $3.68 million in damages from her former teacher. It found the CTC negligent but did not hold it liable for damages.
At a hearing last week, CTC's attorneys argued that Stearns should reimburse them for $283,000 of their court costs.
"I'm not even close to wealthy," said Stearns, who oversees the wig and makeup department at the Guthrie Theater. The defendant, Jason McLean, has apparently fled to Mexico, leaving Stearns' ability to collect the award in doubt.
Protesters said the CTC's request was intended to intimidate other plaintiffs. "It was a message to all of us," said Jina Penn-Tracy of Minneapolis.
Theater managers issued a videotaped public apology to Stearns on Friday, but it did not placate the protesters.
The apology wouldn't have been necessary "if they hadn't made that morally repugnant decision in the first place," said plaintiff Erin Nanasi, calling the video "condescending."
Protesters said the sexual abuse 35 to 45 years ago was far more widespread than the number of current suits would indicate. They described a culture within the theater in which sex between adult staff and teenage students was an "open secret." Students were "groomed and manipulated," told they were special and should be treated like adults, Nanasi said. The praise wasn't explicitly tied to sex, but it seemed part of the arrangement, she said.
