Sexual Violence
Why I Wish I Had Never Sued Children’s Theatre
It nearly destroyed me.
TW for sexual violence
When I was fifteen, a teacher at Children’s Theatre Conservatory School in Minneapolis tried to rape me in his car. I had no reference for sexual violence, I was a virgin, a good Catholic girl, and it never occurred to me that an adult, let alone a teacher, could hurt me the way Stephen Adamczak did.
I fought my way out of that car. I kicked, I screamed, I used my dancer’s legs to shove him against the driver’s door, and launched myself out of the passenger’s door onto the curb. My white bra was up around my neck, my pants were unbuttoned, my shirt was twisted around. I was terrified as I ran home, trying to straighten my clothing in the dark. I never told my parents, because they would have removed me from CTC and possibly called the police.
To a normal person, this makes no sense. Why wouldn’t I tell my parents, why didn’t I want Adamczak to be arrested? Well, CTC wasn’t just a school, it was a cult, run by a convicted sex offender. John Clark Donahue and his fellow predators told us on a daily basis how special we were, how privileged we were, how Children’s Theatre was the only safe place, the only place that would ever understand us.
The three years I spent at CTC screwed me up for life. I am a five-time survivor of sexual violence, and for decades, I believed being raped was the price I paid for being special, for being gifted. Because I learned that at Children’s Theatre. I learned never to tell, I learned it probably wasn’t rape, and I learned it was somehow my fault.
In 2015, a law firm began asking survivors of Children’s Theatre to come forward as potential plaintiffs. I spent a sleepless week debating whether I should talk to them. In early 2016, I did. The law firm released my statement, and thus began the worst three years of my life.
The photo at the top of this article was taken by my husband on a cold, March day in 2016. That’s me, protesting outside Children’s Theatre. I posted on Facebook that I was going to do this, and not one other survivor joined me. I made the sign, and I stood out in the chilly wind, baring my soul to passersby. My anxiety was at an eleven, I could feel my heart racing, I wanted to sprint back to the car, but I stood there for an hour.
I protested with my husband for two more weekends, again, just us, with our signs. At some point after the third weekend, plaintiffs who had already received a great deal of press coverage joined, and soon, others came out to stand with us. The media finally took an interest, only because the well-known survivors had finally shown up.
This was when I started to realize something fairly horrifying. By fighting my way out of Adamczak’s car, by not being actually raped, my trauma was less important. I was treated differently by the press, by other plaintiffs, and even by some of the lawyers. It didn’t matter that a month after Adamczak, a boy I was dating drugged and raped me. It didn’t matter that I spent my sixteenth birthday with two of Adamczak’s other victims who didn’t see themselves as victims and told me over and over again how fun it was, and I was so fucked up when I got home that I tried to kill myself.
It didn’t matter that the three years I spent at Children’s Theatre changed my brain, and took my neural pathways in directions they should never have gone. It didn’t matter that because of CTC, decades went by before a therapist convinced me that being raped was not the price I paid for being gifted and special. What mattered was I got out of the car, which meant I hadn’t suffered as much as the other plaintiffs.
I settled with Children’s Theatre, and after the lawyer’s fees, I walked away with enough money to buy half of a small house. Thirty plus years of hell, self-harm, suicide attempts, eating disorders, binge drinking, five sexual assaults, and one very violent relationship, and I felt like I should have made an “I sued the institution that protected the man who tried to rape me when I was fifteen and all I got was this lousy tee shirt” shirt.
I spent over three years ripping open every wound, sharing and re-sharing every traumatic event I survived. I had a night where I sat on the couch in our old townhouse, staring at a bottle of Aleve, sobbing and shaking and wanting to die. I watched as my courage and bravery were swept aside, as my pain was minimized, and still, I hoped. I hoped for a trial, with a jury, I hoped for justice. I hoped that Children’s Theatre would go bankrupt and close. I got none of what I hoped for, none of it.
I wish I’d never sued Children’s Theatre. I wish I had left the past in the past because opening all those wounds is still causing harm. I still wake up in the middle of the night, memories flooding my damaged brain.
Suing Children’s Theatre took me back to places I never wanted to visit. Every day was more distressing than the last. In spite of all of that, I learned some things about myself. I learned I am more than my trauma, I am more than my scars, I am more than what Children’s Theatre and Stephen Adamczak and lawyers did to me.
And I learned I am brave.
