Twenty-Six

It costs me to share what happened in my time at Circle in the Square — both in the summer program and then the two-year program. I share it to make sure this side of the systemic power abuse is heard, acknowledged, and addressed and specifically that Ken Schatz is permanently removed from faculty and not allowed to set foot in the school again, particularly for the protection of the underaged women there. I also share it so those who have also been abused by him know they are not alone.

I share the experience of my rape at Circle in the Square because the occurrence of my rape is part of the culture at Circle in the Square where violence, assault, sexual assault and rape are too common of occurrences during rehearsals on and off campus. My letter is not the first to address this and I am sure will not be the last. Again, I share so that those who also survived violence while at Circle in the Square know they are not alone. It wasn't our fault. This is the culture that was embraced, enforced, hidden and that faculty and administration actively practiced gaslighting around.

This is my story:

• I was a teenager my entire time at Circle in the Square. 

• I was raped my first year by a fellow student during a rehearsal for a rape scene.

• I was 18.

• My rapist's excuse was: he was doing what the school taught us what acting was and that he had gotten lost in the role. 

• It took Circle in the Square a month to kick my rapist out.

• During that month I was expected to continue to attend class and be around my rapist.

• I had PTSD.

• I was neither provided with nor steered toward any mental health support.

• I was told to “use” what I was feeling in my acting work. 

• When I had flashbacks and panic attacks I was asked to leave class and was left alone to deal with them.

• I was penalized for the amount of class I was missing and my “lack of participation” [my inability due to my PTSD]

• In my second year final project I was cast with my rapist's at-that-time girlfriend who had turned half the school against me when I reported him. I was told we were cast together because the teacher thought it would add some exciting conflict and energy to the play. It was re-traumatizing and caused major setbacks in my healing. 

• The teacher I first confided the rape to was Ken Schatz — the physical acting teacher — 20 years my senior. 

• I confided in Ken Schatz first because Ken Schatz had been grooming me since he first met me in the Circle in the Square summer program when I was 16.

• Ken Schatz began to pursue a sexual relationship with me in my second year of school stating it was “okay” since he was technically no longer my teacher for the second year. 

• Ken Schatz told me to tell no one because he had many student accusations against him already, particularly from underaged women, and it would tarnish his reputation further.

• Circle in the Square was aware of these accusations before and after my time. They stayed silent, kept him employed, and enabled his abuse.

• It took me over 10 years and someone else offering me the word “grooming” — a word I didn’t know — as a potential label for my experience, for me to finally understand what happened to me with Ken Schatz.

• It took me this long because of the nature of grooming and the long-term impact it has. 

• I offer this definition from the NSPCC in case it helps someone else understand what happened to them: "Grooming is when someone builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them. Children and young people who are groomed can be sexually abused, exploited or trafficked.”— NSPCC 

• Ken Schatz reminded me often during the time I knew him that my brain wouldn’t fully develop till I was 25. 

After I left Circle in the Square I dealt with ongoing PTSD, depression, panic attacks, flashbacks, anxiety, cutting, anorexia/bulimia, binge drinking, and suicidal ideation. I almost quit acting 5 years after graduating, despite some success. I was wildly frustrated that I still could not put the Circle in the Square acting techniques to use and often wound up re-traumatized when trying to use them. I continued to not be able to feel safe enough to do my work in any kind of power dynamic with white men — which in the current state of the business is almost always the power dynamic of a rehearsal/shoot/production/audition. I blamed myself.

Luckily, I had enough resilience to try to teach myself how to act all over again using a healthy acting technique. This took many years, a lot of money and a lot of grit. I was fortunate enough to have been able to stick with it.  I am now finally confident in my craft, over a decade after graduating from the school that was supposed to give me these tools. I still have a deep distrust of white men in power in acting spaces and continue to struggle to be vulnerable — which is a huge part of our job as actors. After over a decade of therapy, healing, and relearning how to act, I still have panic attacks during auditions and I still lose jobs because of what happened to me at Circle in the Square Theatre School. 

Twenty-Two

Note: Originally, a large part of the text of this letter was posted on my Instagram on July 16, 2020. A fellow alum who is one of the organizers of Circle of Inequity asked me if I would share my story on the website, so I am. 

While I am thankful for my training at Circle in the Square Theatre School, and the many amazing people I met who continue to love and support me to this day, I agree completely with the creators of this website that there are serious issues with the culture of the institution that need to be addressed. I stand with my fellow alumni who created this website, and affirm their demands. We want moral integrity in our industry. While the industry is on a pandemic break, I hope all white performers (myself included), theatre professionals, educators, and primarily white institutions take time to listen to the complaints and demands of our colleagues of color and consider where we have gone wrong, and what we can help prevent in the future. I hope Circle in the Square takes all these stories to heart and steps forward to make necessary changes, for the good of their students, their workplace culture, and the whole industry. The stakes are literally life and death, as can be read in Haley Boswell’s letter and others. And now, my stories: 

*** RACISM: I have regretted a choice I made as a performer while at Circle in the Square Theatre School for some time now. It was 2015, we were preparing for showcase, and me and two other white girls were asked to audition to play the Puerto-Rican character Rosalia opposite our actually Puerto-Rican classmate’s fabulous rendition of Anita in a performance of the song “America”. I got the role, which I never would have considered myself for, and for which I should have never been considered by my teachers. I should have been a real friend to my Latina classmates, and when asked to audition, said no. I should have recommended they cast a Latina student from another class in the part. This did not occur to me, nor did it occur to the other white girls auditioning, nor did it occur to the white teachers casting. Why? We all know why. Racism is a sin that all white people are guilty of: whether the harm caused is intentional or conscious or not, it’s still a sin. 

The year before, I had performed “A Boy Like That” with another white girl. I thought it was fine because it was not a real production of West Side Story, my voice sounded good in the song, and because my teacher said “It’s common for Italian girls to play this part”. But Maria’s story is not mine to tell. Rosalia’s story is not mine to tell. Those are Latina roles. I am not a Latina girl. 

I could call myself and others out on more. As we see, it’s really easy to find ways to justify making decisions outside of a place of moral integrity and at the expense of other people when it benefits us or our “artistic freedom”. Our choices made in free will are our own, and we are ultimately the ones responsible for those choices and the consequences of those choices. However, I do believe that some teachers at CITS encouraged behaving outside of a place of personal integrity for the sake of artistic “bravery”, or “truth telling”, and that students often suffer/ed emotional and physical pain as a consequence of this. I also believe teachers sometimes pushed not only boundaries of artistic growth, but students’ personal boundaries of moral integrity, which is not their job. 

MISOGYNY/SEXUAL MISCONDUCT: One time, my male teacher in his mid-fifties called me, a then high-school-age girl, a “bitch” in front of my whole class, in order to try to get a reaction out of me. I never let a man call me a bitch so I handled that myself, but it really was not okay. That same teacher also told a classmate of mine to “rub her cunt” on a bed in excitement during a scene. So rude, and beyond inappropriate. 

PHYSICAL VIOLENCE: Another example: A girl, overcome with her “in-character” rage, spontaneously threw me against a wall by my arm during a scene in our first month of school. We never rehearsed this moment, or even talked about it before it happened. She could have broken my arm, which pissed me off. Instead of reprimanding her for her unsafe behavior, the teacher told me to “use my anger” to fuel the scene. NOT all of the teachers encouraged this, as “safety first” was clearly shown to be a top priority in many of our classes. But if that kind of behavior happened during a rehearsal on a professional contract, the actor would immediately get fired. It was the teacher’s duty to correct the student who stepped out of bounds, as she was paying him to be her guide in this professional musical theatre program. He did nothing to correct her behavior. 

SEXUAL MISCONDUCT: I was also assaulted in Room 114 on campus by a male classmate. We were rehearsing a sexually charged scene, and in the scene, I had to straddle him on a chair. Behind the closed door of the rehearsal room, he told me that he was “so committed to getting into [his] character”, that us having penetrative sex on the floor of 114 would not be “going too far” in his mind. I told him he was wrong about that, and that I would never ever do anything sexual with him in real life, and he needed to understand that. We began the rehearsal, and we were kissing in character. I was on his lap, and he sexually assaulted me. 

Betrayed and in shock, I ended the rehearsal shortly after and then had to go to another class. I had to go to work after that, which got out around midnight, and then I had class again the next morning, etc. Nonstop CITS schedule, ya know? So I never really had time to process this as an assault. I did the scene with him in front of our class because it was on the schedule and it was too late to put something else up, and frankly, I did not feel I had the emotional headspace or time to deal with it. He behaved himself in front of the class. Because of this assault, I now refuse to rehearse intimate scenes with acting partners without a third party present. An Intimacy Coordinator or an Intimate Scenes elective class with trained professional Intimacy Coordinators would be a really good thing to incorporate at CITS. Of course, my assault is not the fault of the institution, it is only my classmate’s fault. But I believe he really felt his actions were justified because he was “so committed to getting into [his] character”, at all costs. 

I have faith that people on the faculty and staff would have believed my story and tried to help me if I reported it. I did not report it. I wish there had been a mental health counselor on campus. This would be a person I would have felt comfortable making an appointment with to discuss this upsetting encounter with, and discuss whether or not I wanted to seek retribution toward my classmate, and it all would have been completely confidential. 

I remember crying from stress during a class, and my teacher telling me that students from Circle in the Square had a reputation in the industry of being “emotionally damaged”. That says more about the institution than the students. Circle is not the only educational or theatrical institution being called forward to undergo crucial changes in its culture. But unlike some of these other schools, I hope Circle actually listens to the stories of the alumni and acts on their demands, and can make the essential changes now, which will affect people, the industry, and therefore the world in a positive way.

Best,

Abbeyrose Garner
Class of 2015 

Twenty-One

The trauma I experienced at this institution nearly cost me my love of theatre, and for my own mental health I took a year off, unsure if I could continue acting. Thankfully, despite Circle, I was able to find my love again.

At every level, Circle is plagued with problems. Instructors endorse physical and mental abuse for the sake of "truth telling." Women especially were repeatedly forced to detail or act out intimate sexual experiences in front of the teachers and entire class and repeatedly coerced into doing so even if she said "no" again and again. Circle lives in the 1950's, idolizing abusive white male actors and encouraging these white males in the institution to abuse others around them because other "great" actors did so.

I am mixed race and was told repeatedly that I didn't count as Latina. I was told I did not have a fiery temperament and many other disgusting stereotypes and racists remarks against Latinx people by staff and students alike.

I can think of only two plays on the approved scene list that had characters of color, and white students were allowed to act in those scenes. There was no discussion of whitewashing or why it is not okay for white students to pretend to be another race. When two students were doing Motherf*ucker With a Hat, the woman was told she had to act like a Latina, and to "pretend you just got your nails done," followed by the teacher acting out a gross stereotype.Students whose second language is English are harassed and belittled by the staff. I did not personally experience it but was disgusted and appalled by what I saw, especially as somebody whose family's second language is English.

Mid-Atlantic accent teachings are not only racist in ideology and held over from an antiquated past, but also minimize students from other places and cultures and do not adequately prepare students for accent work in the second year. Moreover, I did not ever see one student who adequately mastered the accent in any event, and the class proved to be a waste of time for the most part.

This institution either needs to change or shut down, as it is abusive and racist and damaging to its students. It needs fundamental change from the inside out or should no longer continue.I graduated from Circle, but I do not consider myself an alumni because of the abuse I suffered and the ongoing trauma. I do not think I will ever recover from the experiences I faced at that place, and it is not because I am weak or not meant to be an actor. I am a strong Latinx woman and actress, despite how Circle tried to pull me down and abuse me. I will never forgive that place for what it did to me and others. Personally, I would like to see it gone forever, but I hope for the sake of others it can change its way, though I very much doubt it can.

— Anonymous

Seven

My time at Circle was the most amazing and formative two years of my life. Unfortunately, at that time I had not educated myself enough to pay attention to the inequities my peers may have been experiencing within the classroom. I had the privilege to feel safe enough in my classes to experience a full artistic awakening and grow in my artistry and Circle in the Square has the responsibility to ensure every student feels safe to grow freely. 

The one time I felt unsafe in a class at Circle was when I witnessed a male teacher behaving inappropriately with multiple female students in and outside the classroom. My witness to these situations made me feel unsafe, uncomfortable, and like I had to close myself off in class, essentially undoing two years of hard work to be open and vulnerable. I addressed my concerns with this teacher directly, specifically what I felt was an abuse of power, and was immediately gas lit by him. I brought my concerns to an administrator who, to my knowledge, did not choose to act with authority on the situation at the time. This teacher's predatory behavior continued past my graduation and he remains an active faculty member. The consequences of speaking my mind, in my belief, have limited the number of opportunities I may have been offered among the Circle alumni. I merely witnessed this situation and the results of speaking up made me feel miniscule- I can't imagine the experiences of my friends who were impacted directly by acts of discrimination and abuse of power.

I want Circle to move forward and the artistic work to continue, but in order to do so it needs to address that there are inequities within its system that do not afford BIPOC the same joy filled experience as mine. They need to acknowledge that they have heard stories of these inequities but have not listened and acted to correct them.I hope through hard work and listening we can build a program where no student feels they are being marginalized or can’t fully embrace their human being because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation.

I love Circle in the Square and what it should and can be.

— Caitlin Nosal

Four

During my time at Circle in the Square Theater School (September 2015-June 2017), I witnessed many instances of misconduct (mental, sexual, and racial) aimed at my classmates, as well as myself. I won’t speak on anyone else’s behalf, but I will speak on my own personal experiences.

One incident immediately comes to mind. It happened one afternoon during our First Year Scene Study class. I had brought in a scene from the musical Spring Awakening. The scene opens with Melchior, the character I was working on, reading a book. It got off to a fairly normal start, but was abruptly stopped by the instructor conducting the class. He began asking questions about what book I thought the character might be reading. I, admittedly, hadn’t put much thought into it, and made that known. He then proceeded to (not so subtly) skirt around the idea of what he thought the book might be about. If you know the show (and I’m sure you do), you know that it is very sexually charged. Being aware of this, I immediately picked up on what he was hinting at and was more than uncomfortable with the situation. I didn’t want to say what I knew that he wanted me to say; a conclusion that he wanted me to “come to on my own”, for obvious reasons. I stayed silent for so long that he finally gave in and said, outright, “It’s a book of pornography.” This, while not being the most audacious of things ever said to a student studying theatre, threw me for a loop. I was quite visibly uneasy with the situation. He continued on, suggesting that the character was more than likely experimenting sexually in the moment. He implied that he was “probably” touching himself. I was stunned. I froze, not knowing what to do. I did not want to do what he was asking me to do. However, had I said no, I would have been labeled as “not able to take direction”, and that information would have surely been used against me, as was customary. And so I did. I touched myself. As I’ve said, the play is very sexually charged. However, nowhere in the text does it allude to that sort of thing, but he was the “professional” and was able to understand the “subtext”. This happened in front of my entire class. It was highly demoralizing and far from necessary.

Along with this, I would like to point out the severe lack of mental healthcare services provided to the students attending Circle. An institution that delves deep into Stanislavski’s method of acting (a method that “activates the actor’s psychological processes–such as emotional experience and subconscious behavior”) should have a mental health counselor on staff, plain and simple. I was told, daily, to “open myself up” emotionally and was reprimanded for being hesitant to do so. After finally giving in, as someone who had dealt with mental health issues before coming to Circle, it proved to be actively dangerous to my mental and physical health. It took a very big toll. So much so, that I was regularly approached by instructors urging me to seek out professional help. I took this advice very seriously, but had no resources to do so. I was lost. I was in serious danger.

I would like to be very clear in saying that I am in no way implying that attending Circle in the Square Theater School was the cause of my mental health issues. That would be irresponsible and slanderous on my part. However, an institution that urges the act of “taking yourself apart” and looking at the pieces should be better equipped in helping to put their students back together.

Change is needed to ensure a long and prosperous future for Circle in the Square and it needs to be addressed. Now.

— William Holden Cox