Painting a vivid picture of bullying and sexual degradation at Toronto’s largest nonprofit theater, four actresses have sued Soulpepper Theater Company and its longtime artistic director, Albert Schultz, accusing him of sexual harassment and assault and the company of allowing his behavior.
In separate claims, each of which calls Mr. Schultz “a serial sexual predator” and “the controlling mind of Soulpepper,” the women are seeking combined damages of more than $6.2 million.
The company’s board of directors has instructed Mr. Schultz, 54, to step down temporarily while it investigates the allegations, Soulpepper said in a statement Wednesday. Mr. Schultz’s wife, Leslie Lester, the company’s executive director, is taking a voluntary leave of absence until the investigation is complete.
Containing section headings like “Albert Creates a Culture of Fear” and “Albert Proposes a Stripping Game at His House,” the legal documents outline instances between 2000 and 2013 in which Mr. Schultz, a co-founder of Soulpepper, is accused of touching, ogling or exposing himself to the actresses against their will.
The lawsuits also charge that he belittled the actresses or pressured them to engage in uncomfortably sexual conversations. The plaintiffs in the cases are Kristin Booth, Diana Bentley, Patricia Fagan and Hannah Miller.
Continue reading the main storyIn a statement made through his lawyer on Wednesday, Mr. Schultz said: “These claims make serious allegations against me which I do not take lightly. Over the coming time period, I intend to vehemently defend myself.”
Largely unknown in American theater circles until just last summer, when the company celebrated Canada’s sesquicentennial by bringing a dozen shows to New York on tour, Soulpepper is an outsize presence at home. And Mr. Schultz is well known as an actor from the CBC television drama “Street Legal.”
Alexi Wood, one of the lawyers representing the women, said in an interview that the 20-year-old company’s influence in Canada is part of what makes the behavior Mr. Schultz is accused of “so egregious.”
“He himself and Soulpepper wield so much power,” Ms. Wood said, “that the women felt they were genuinely powerless to do anything other than to allow this behavior to continue, for fear that their careers would be over not just at Soulpepper but in the theater world more broadly.”
The lawsuits and the accusations were first detailed in an article Wednesday in The Globe and Mail.
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