The four women in civil lawsuits claim they were “sexually assaulted and harassed” while working under Schultz at Soulpepper Theater in Toronto.
Four TV actresses have brought separate lawsuits against Canadian actor and director Albert Schultz, alleging he sexually assaulted and harassed them while he was artistic director of Soulpepper Theater Company in Toronto.
The four performers are Orphan Black star Kristin Booth, Diana Bentley (Netflix’s Frontier), Hannah Miller (Saving Hope, Dark Matter) and Patricia Fagan (Murdoch Mysteries). The actresses claim Schultz harassed them during 30 separate incidents over a 13-year period while they performed onstage for Soulpepper.
Their lawyer, Alexi Wood, on Wednesday told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement that “Mr. Schultz abused his power for years. My clients fully intend to hold him and Soulpepper Theater Company accountable. Their brave lawsuit is the first step towards righting this incredible wrong.”
Wood confirmed the four women filed the lawsuits in the Ontario Superior Court and will hold a press conference on Thursday morning in Toronto. “The actresses claim that while they were under contract with Soulpepper, they were sexually assaulted and harassed by its artistic director, Mr. Schultz, and that Soulpepper did nothing to protect them,” reads Wood’s statement.
Fagan’s statement of claim obtained by THR alleges Schultz engaged in “mocking, belittling and bullying” of female castmembers at Soulpepper, and during a 2000 rehearsal for Twelfth Night at one point she “felt him push his penis against me” as he stepped in as director to advise on an intimate scene.
The suit also recounts a parking lot incident where Fagan and Booth, also a castmember at the time, were asked by Schultz as “an acting exercise” to go through a list of male Soulpepper company members and tell him who they would most like to sleep with. “Patricia (Fagan) felt uncomfortable and humiliated,” the statement of claim continues, and yet she felt she had to “acquiesce to Albert’s demand” and make comments on her male castmates because she was new to the theater world.
Fellow actress Booth in her suit also recounted the parking lot scene, where “it became clear from Albert’s reaction and enticement that he expected and wanted them to say, ‘I would fuck Albert Schultz,’ and more importantly, make him believe it was true, with failure to do so meaning a lack of commitment.”
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