'backstage drama' *READ TW* · 3:17am Jan 22nd, 2023
I wanted to talk about something that's been on my mind as of late. See I've taken to an unconventional form of journaling as of late because I've found that externalizing singular thoughts is much more helpful than a storytime format that I have frequently used here. Which is why I doubt I'll be using this to work out any complex feelings in the future as I no longer have a need for it. However, I tend to have a pervasive issue of forgetting any emotionally distressing events that have happened to me. And while yes it is a necessary protection mechanism, it also means that a decision to forgive and not forget often turns into forgive and forget or in worse circumstances, forget and not forgive. So these posts are a really good reference point for me if I ever need to recall certain events, along with getting an idea of how an event affected me while it was happening. I sincerely hope that I can keep these up at least through high school for that reason.
And that secondary reason is why I'm making this post today. Because I made a promise to myself over the summer to be fully morally and ethically clean, and that includes staying away from rumors and naming names in drama. But these aren't rumors, it's truth. Mine and others. And this is probably my tenth attempt to make this post.
If the subject of this post decides to do anything during the course of the upcoming spring musical or does anything to get put on a certain list in the coming years, I want to have this. So I'm just going to describe everything that happened in as little detail as possible. I'll list it all out and elaborate to the extent in which I can which means I might come back and edit this later or I might have 2 sentences to describe one event and 4 paragraphs for another.
And let's get to the elephant in the room. This post contains discussions of sexual harassment in a workplace and a social environment. If that is a sensitive subject for you I highly advise skipping this post. No discussion of SA will be included because that's not a part of this story. Everyone involved in this story are minors between the ages of 14-17. Age of consent in my state is 16 if that matters to you in any way. With that out of the way let's get this over with. All names have been changed with exception of my own because that's a choice I've made.
If you don't understand any of the theatre terms feel free to ask, but going over all of those in this one post is going to drain my willpower to finish. Most of those can be googled anyway.
Feb 2021: Fall Production
Yeah yeah February isn't fall, covid sucks.
Our fall production was A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was done in an immersive setting where the audience would move around the school to see the different scenes. Meaning we were left unsupervised for large stretches of time. I was a freshman in grade and an 8th grader in age. Our specimen, Thomas, was a sophomore at the time. He was generally an asshole to everyone in our scene for the entirety of the production, but that's a discussion for a different time. What's a discussion for now is how I quite literally caught him staring at me while I wasn't looking. And like I don't wanna get into specifics but like I know it wasn't an accident. This isn't some 'gut feeling' this is a common sense deduction I drew from the comment he made and the way things happened.
I was literally 14 at the time.
Let's not dwell on this I want to get this done.
Oct 2021: The Party
One of my theatre friends threw a Halloween party and I went to that party. I have to say that I was not entirely sober when these events happened but I was lucid enough to know that all of this happened and to be able to think clearly. Think like functioning at 90%.
Anyway, so me and some other friends wanted to chill in the hot tub so we stripped down to our underwear and did just that. Still 14 at the time but my birthday was in less than a week. Thomas was 16, over the age of consent. I don't know if he also chose to drink at this party or do any other things related. I had only been consuming small amounts of alcohol and vaping.
Anyway, I would later hear from one of my trustworthy friends who was definitely sober that Thomas, was in his words, 'lurking' in the corner while we were in the tub. And like this friend is someone who I have a high level of professional trust with. I sincerely doubt that he would be bringing it up if there wasn't at least a small cause for concern.
The event that led to him bringing it up was not one that happened to me but one that someone I'm close acquaintances witnessed. But apparently, there was a 'really pretty girl' who was inside the house and she was like dancing and my friend had said to her friend that the girl was pretty, when Thomas butt in on their conversation, put his arm around my friend and said
"Yeah well she's gonna be mine by the end of the evening"
What the actual fuck?
And like *apparently* he was flirting with her and she said she had a partner and was reportedly uncomfy with his advances. Which if the latter is true is really bad. But I can't confirm whether or not this actually happened. I was not there. I had to leave the party shortly after to make curfew.
April 2022 Spring Musical
And now we head into Mamma Mia. I will say that he liked to linger behind people when they were getting mic'ed and had to partially undress for that. But that's speculative enough to not be a full story. What isn't speculation was his disregard for dressing room protocol.
So basically what happened was I wasn't entirely sure if everyone was dressed and either wasn't confident enough to ask or no one responded so I cracked the door when I came in and went to do my makeup or something. When all of a sudden I hear the door swing open and Thomas announce his presence. And then the makeup head went to yell at him. And then he shouted in response something like "I'm gay it shouldn't matter!"
Thomas has identified as bisexual at every point before and after this. And the gay men in this program have always been respectful of the wishes of others. My best friend in the program identifies as gay and has never done anything like this and to my knowledge has never made anyone feel uncomfortable on purpose or unsafe. And if they do make anyone feel uncomfortable they immediately apologize and do things to prevent it from happening again.
Anyway, the situation was brought to the attention of the director and she handled it however she saw fit. Which very well may have been doing nothing at all.
I don't want to torture myself by putting myself through any sort of explanation of my thoughts and feelings, I will not be satisfied until he is blacklisted from the program. I don't need any sort of legal consequences, I only want me and my friends to not have their safe space taken away by a performative egotist who uses neurodiversity as a weapon to justify doing fucked up things. And this is just a list of things that either definitely happened or I have faith in the person telling me the secondhand information. I did not include any info from sources I don't have full faith in nor any of the smaller things he's done that made me raise an eyebrow. He's a senior now and I swear to God if he still hasn't learned his lesson and does something during this year's musical, I'll bring all of this to our director and hopefully take great pleasure in his role being replaced or eliminated.
That's all. I've finally got this finished.
I'm so done.
*RDIT Everyone was fully costumed when the dressing room debacle happened, the issue was that he walked straight into the room without checking first. We are allowed to intermingle between the dressing rooms because the makeup and costume heads often lean towards the feminine side, but this done only after checking or unless the door is blatantly open. I realized that the original telling implies that people were in compromising positions when that is fortunately not how it happened. No matter how I feel about someone that's not an excuse to overexaggerate and it's my responsibility to correct that.
I'm going to suggest that you bring this information to the directors attention, regardless of wether this person does anything else or not. You may just prevent him from doing something else that might be worse than what has already occurred.