Both sides announced Friday that eight remaining lawsuits against Children’s Theatre Company alleging sex abuse by former staff have been settled. Plaintiff Laura Stearns said “it is better late than never,” noting some fellow survivors would like C-T-C’s building taken apart brick by brick. “I can understand that,” Stearns said. “It’s difficult for me some days to even drive by it, but the fact is that the building does exist and that there are people inside that building who are willing to work and willing to attempt to make things better.”
Executive Director Kimberly Motes says “absolutely everyone” who’s now at Children’s Theatre Company is “appalled and deeply, deeply sorry… that survivors had to suffer in silence for so long.” Terms of the settlement aren’t being released. Survivors’ attorney Jeff Anderson says “the amount of money paid is not the story” and this is a time for reconciliation, reparation and engagement.
Children’s Theatre Company will also put 500 thousand dollars toward a fund for survivors. Plaintiff Jina Penn-Tracy says the fund will be designed by survivors and administered by a third party and “will make therapeutic support available to the hundreds of victims of abuse at CTC during the ’70s and ’80s.” Penn-Tracy says because abuse suffered at Children’s Theatre Company was not only sexual, the fund will recognize multiple types of harm done during those decades.