Cleveland Play House’s website currently has a banner reading: “Emergency notice: I’M BACK NOW has been cancelled.” The announcement was made without further details two weeks ago.
But according to director Stori Ayers, “They didn’t cancel anything. We said ‘No!’”
Ayers wrote in a statement on social media that she stepped away from the project after Cleveland Play House failed to appropriately address a sexual assault of one of the play’s actors.
The theater instructed the victim to continue working and living in the Reserve Square Apartments — the site of the assault — and failed to notify Ayers or artists living in the apartments, according to Ayers Instagram posts, which were shared by I’M BACK NOW playwright Charly Evon Simpson on Twitter.
“During a Saturday rehearsal, I noticed that one of the actresses was struggling to take deep breaths and her speech was labored,” Ayers wrote. “I immediately checked on their well-being in private and learned that on Thursday evening the actress had been sexually assaulted in the elevators of the artists’ housing, Reserve Square Apartments. They immediately reported the sexual assault but Cleveland Play House neglected to act appropriately.”
In her post, Ayers says interim artistic and managing director Mark Cuddy’s given reason for failing to notify her about the assault was that it “wasn’t at the forefront of his mind”.
Ayers also wrote that chairman of the board of directors Michael Meehan “expressed that he was excited to produce the play to ‘show that you are all human’ (‘you all’ being the black audience in Cleveland). He and the board of directors are refusing to pay the artists out in full, using policy and procedure as a way to dehumanize artists and, in particular, artists of color. We are not human to Cleveland Play House.”
Playwright Charly Evon Simpson said in a tweet that she pulled the rights to the play.
“I said NO to my play being the site of and excuse for further harm,” playwright Charly Evon Simpson wrote. “I said YES to prioritizing the health, well-being, and safety of the I’M BACK NOW company.”
Neither Cuddy nor Cleveland Play House have responded to requests for comment.
Ayers and Simpson haven’t responded to requests for interviews.
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Cleveland Play House Acknowledges Missteps in How It Handled Assault on Actor
This article appears in Feb 8-21, 2023.