Film documenting decades of abuse at Children's Theatre Company making its debut

NINA MOINI: A film documenting sexual abuse during the 1970s and '80s at the Children's Theater Company in Minneapolis is making its debut next week. The documentary Magic & Monsters follows the survivors who broke their silence. Here's a clip from the trailer.

SPEAKER 1: The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigated complaints that students were being sexually abused.

SPEAKER 2: Our love of that art is what kept us there.

SPEAKER 3: People started telling their stories. And it was just this, oh, my God, I had no idea.

SPEAKER 4: We were looking at a tip of the iceberg.

SPEAKER 5: Wealthy, influential people of positions were very reluctant that this investigation would go forward.

SPEAKER 6: Denial is such an easy thing to choose.

SPEAKER 7: There are indications that other staff members may have been sexually abusing children over a period of many years.

SPEAKER 8: They didn't want to believe that this was many, many perpetrators, many, many victims.

SPEAKER 9: I had told the truth. It cost me everything that was important to me.

NINA MOINI: The film will be premiering at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival on Monday. And the director of the film Magic & Monsters, Norah Shapiro, joins me in the studio. Thank you so much for being here, Norah.

NORAH SHAPIRO: Thank you so much for having me.

NINA MOINI: I was able to watch the film last night. Very powerful. Thank you for your work. And MPR News did extensively cover the investigation and the lawsuit against the Children's Theater Company. But for people who have not heard about it or have maybe forgotten, could you just give us an idea of what happened here?

NORAH SHAPIRO: Wow, that's a bit of a tall order. It's a very complicated story that spanned decades, actually. I'll try to boil it down.

NINA MOINI: Sure.

NORAH SHAPIRO: The theater company, in the iteration known as the Children's Theater Company, started in the '60s, actually. Actually was started in a basement and grew organically into something really magnificent, as many people know it to be today. But a lot of that growth, or all of it, was due to the brilliance and the direction of John Clark Donahue, the artistic director.

And while all of that was happening and it was coming into its own, the brilliance of the artistry and the recognition of that, not just locally, but nationally and internationally, unfortunately, there was a darker side to what was happening. And it later became known that there were many children that were being harmed along the way, specifically sexually abused.

And as it ultimately turned out, it was not just by one person, but by numerous people. There was a culture that allowed that to take place. Fast forward to the mid-2010s, Minnesota was one of the first states in the nation to reform its statute of limitations laws. And so there was a three-year lookback window, if you will. And ultimately, a group of 17 former students, alumni of the theater ended up bringing civil lawsuits against the theater and/or their abusers.

NINA MOINI: And so the film is with these adult survivors now telling their stories, seeking justice. How did you first become connected with the survivors and want to tell their story?

NORAH SHAPIRO: Yeah, that's a great question. A close friend of mine, who's a very talented print journalist, had been assigned to follow the story in the leadup to the one and only case that ultimately did go to trial. And she wrote an award-winning story called "The Exit Strategy" for Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. That's Elisabeth Foy Larsen. And she did painstaking reporting leading up to that.

And it was through a conversation that she had in the aftermath of that trial with several of the plaintiffs, who decided that there was more to be told. And I was invited to have a conversation. At which point, it seemed like this was something that we should do, we should pursue.

NINA MOINI: I understand that you, obviously, took this very seriously. You went through training to approach people in a trauma-informed sense. How great of a sense of a responsibility did you feel? And what was the process like from your perspective?

NORAH SHAPIRO: Such a good question. Yes, an enormous sense of responsibility. And I'm so grateful, in part, informed by Elizabeth's experience, that led us early on to know that we needed to get additional training and awareness and support.

I will say that the responsibility that I feel now is even leagues beyond what I felt and took so seriously, even at the beginning, having been entrusted with telling this very, very complicated story that affects and touches so many people in this community and beyond in so, so many ways. It's very near and dear and painful and fraught and many other things to so many people that I don't think we could have taken it any more seriously than we have.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And so you're saying that now that it's out, audiences are going to see it. I'm assuming the survivors have seen it. Or maybe some of them want to wait. I'm not sure. But how is that part of the process feeling? You're saying it's a little more even heightened.

NORAH SHAPIRO: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. So for sure, the participants in the film have had the opportunity to see the film. And in fact, something I haven't done in previous films, we shared the work along the way. And that's a complicated thing to do while maintaining independence, but also being trauma-informed. And how this is going to hit people and the ripples and the layers is a heavy and important thing.

What I do know is that all the people who chose to participate in the film did so because they wanted there to be continued dialogue, and they want things to change. And they want part of what happened to them to become part of the larger story. Most importantly, it's about healing and looking back at how things were able to happen and what maybe could have happened differently and what's so important in that healing process, particularly when an institution is involved with a group of survivors.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, so many layers and so many emotions. And now, like you said, more people are going to see. And that does help the conversation to grow and for people to pay attention and to maybe think of something they hadn't thought of it before. And I am curious to know, though, the Children's Theater Company, I mean, it didn't seem from the film-- I don't want to give too much away, but what was their involvement? And did you try to involve them?

NORAH SHAPIRO: We did on multiple occasions. We tried really hard to get them to participate. I think it would have been a really wonderful thing had they been part of the film. But they didn't. They opted not to. So we did our darndest to be as careful as possible, as rigorous in our reporting, our fact-checking as we possibly could and let the story tell itself. But they did not choose to participate.

NINA MOINI: OK. The audience members who are going to see this, this is an international film festival, obviously. If they didn't know about it, although people across the world did know about it-- it wasn't just a Minneapolis or a Minnesota thing-- what are you hoping that people take away from this? Maybe they've never heard the story before, or maybe they have.

NORAH SHAPIRO: I think a couple of things. I think that, first of all, this is a topic that for some people is really hard. And there's a tendency to look away. And I think that's a lot of what happened here. And I hope what people will take away from having seen the film is that we can't look away. We have to be able to talk about this. It's an epidemic, actually, in our society. And part of how it happens is shame and secrecy and not looking.

I also hope audiences take away questions of courage, questions of courage and questions of choice and questions of institutional culture and what the role of individuals-- because institutions are made up of individuals, as are boards of directors, as our communities, as our audiences. And I think there's an important conversation to be had.

This is not about tearing down the theater. This is not about tearing down any institution. This is about what can be done to understand how this could happen and what can be done to prevent it, and also understanding that you can't bury this, that you can't hide it. Because if you try to do that, you cause additional exponential harm and pain. And that the only way we move past that for everyone involved is to really look at what happened and for there to be accountability.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Norah, thank you so much for coming by and sharing your work with us. Can people still get tickets for the film festival?

NORAH SHAPIRO: As far as I'm told, both screenings are currently sold out. But for people who are patient and willing to show up, I also hear that there are usually tickets available in the rush line. And so I hope people will do that. And then there will be, in the near future, other opportunities to see the film.

NINA MOINI: Got it. Norah, thank you so much for coming by. We really appreciate it.

NORAH SHAPIRO: Thank you so much.

NINA MOINI: Norah Shapiro is the director of the documentary, Magic & Monsters, which is premiering at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival on Monday. And Minnesota does have a 24-hour statewide domestic and sexual violence hotline. You can call Minnesota Day One at 866-223-1111. Or you can text 612-399-9995. We'll have that information online as well with this story, mprnews.org.