Soulpepper Theatre Company announced it will cancel next week’s 2018 debut production Amadeus at the request of its artists and has severed ties with Albert Schultz’s wife, executive director Leslie Lester. “We reached a consensus to recommend not to continue with the show. Amadeus was directed by Albert Schultz. We believe (plaintiffs) Diana Bentley, Kristin Booth, Patricia Fagan, and Hannah Miller, and stand with them,” said Soulpepper actors and designers on the Amadeus production, in a statement.The statement was written on behalf of 33 Soulpepper artists, including the new artistic director Alan Dilworth, acknowledging “there has been an unhealthy workplace culture for a long time.”Schultz and Soulpepper were served with multimillion-dollar civil lawsuits on Thursday by the four women, who claim that the 54-year-old sexually abused and harassed them in what they all characterized as “Soulpepper’s best-known secret.”The actresses are seeking a total of $4.25 million in damages from Soulpepper, and $3.6 million from Schultz.The claims detailed in the four lawsuits have not been proven in court. Soulpepper and Schultz have not yet filed a statement of defence.The 33 artists who signed the statement said they face “a lot of questions and a lot of uncertainty, but we are determined to reimagine the future at Soulpepper by grappling with where the company has come from, facing difficult questions, in order for healing and transformation to take place.”The names of four other Soulpepper actors — Ted Dykstra, Stuart Hughes, Michelle Monteith and Rick Roberts — who resigned in a show of solidarity with the women, are not listed in the statement. On Friday, a representative of the actors said there are “a couple of internal questions that need to be answered” before they are able to discuss the status of their affiliation with the company.Lester, Schultz’s wife, had tempor ...
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