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SPEAKER 1: Theaters in small cities and towns rarely make headlines. But at the Rochester Civic Theater, what began as an internal disagreement over a play has made local headlines and was followed by the departure of two long-time leaders. The dispute has also pulled back the curtain on alleged sexual harassment within the theater, and it's raised questions about its management. Catharine Richert has our report.

CATHARINE RICHERT: The thing that rocked the Rochester Civic Theater was a dispute over intermission. The Drowsy Chaperone, a comedy performed by the community theater earlier this year, doesn't have one. It does have a joke about intermissions and just how disruptive they are.

SPEAKER 2: Who like intermissions? One moment you're lost in the glamorous world of music and romance, and bam! You're surrounded by Mayo Clinic employees.

[AUDIENCE LAUGHING]

CATHARINE RICHERT: But the former theater executive director, Gregory Stavrou, liked intermissions. That's because patrons buy drinks at the bar and the theater makes money. So he called for one, but found himself surrounded by an enraged cast. Stavrou backed off, but the seeds of revolt were taking root.

In March of this year, six people complained to the board about his unwanted sexual advances, including unwanted comments, touching, and kisses. He resigned in April, citing health reasons. But then came the board's decision to eliminate the position held by the theater's popular artistic director, further angering volunteers. So they took to the streets, calling for the board's ouster.

(SINGING) We're not gonna take it

SPEAKER 3: No! No!

CATHARINE RICHERT: Stavrou played a lead role in this turmoil despite supporters and critics saying he successfully lifted the theater's visibility at a time when it was struggling financially. Over the nearly 10 years that Stavrou led the organization, the theater received $1.3 million in government grants. In an exit interview in April with KROC Radio, Stavrou declared his tenure a success.

GREGORY STAVROU: It's been a good nearly a decade. Gotten a lot of good work done.

CATHARINE RICHERT: In buttoned-up Rochester, Stavrou stands out. He's tall. He's a dapper dresser, and he has a booming theatrical voice. He also has a reputation in the theater community for being a flirt and has repeatedly been accused of going too far. Seven people MPR News interviewed say they personally had been subjected to unwelcome sexual advances from Stavrou. We encountered no allegations that he acted inappropriately with minors.

Stavrou has not responded to MPR's numerous attempts to reach him over the span of six weeks by email, telephone, through friends and family members. His only available comments come from a 2011 email response to a complaint saying, quote, "I believe in a transparent, candid, respect-based work environment."

Shortly after Stavrou was hired in 2008, volunteer stage manager, Melanie Ellsworth, informed three board members that Stavrou had suggested a sexual encounter to her. He was married at the time. Full disclosure, Ellsworth works for a division of Minnesota Public Radio. Those board members asked Ellsworth if she wanted to confront Stavrou. And some accompanied her when she did.

MELANIE ELLSWORTH: And he completely denied everything. To have somebody tell you that your experience didn't happen makes you feel crazy.

BILL O'BRIEN: The notion that you're going to ask the complainant to confront the person they're complaining about is horrible protocol. Absolutely horrible.

CATHARINE RICHERT: This is Bill O'Brien, a Minneapolis employment lawyer. He says the board should have launched a formal investigation instead. That's exactly what the board of a Twin Cities arts organization did after an employee complained Stavrou had harassed four staffers during a prior period of employment. MPR News is not naming that organization because the situation involves sensitive personal information.

Stavrou left the Twin Cities organization shortly after the investigation concluded, and he was hired by the Rochester Civic Theater in 2008. Sharon Tennis was the Rochester Theater's board president when Stavrou was hired. She says his background check and references yielded nothing untoward, and that she personally addressed any complaints brought to her.

Leah Cooper is founding director of the Minnesota Theater Alliance. She says unwanted sexual advances are rife in the theater.

LEAH COOPER: It is such an accepted practice.

CATHARINE RICHERT: Cooper says sexual harassment goes unchecked because salaried directors and administrators have all the power, and actors who work on contract have none.

LEAH COOPER: Every actor knows that if they upset a director, that director's never going to hire them again.

CATHARINE RICHERT: Katie Hawley feared being blacklisted from future shows, and that's one reason she didn't report Stavrou's inappropriate behavior. He joined the theater when Hawley was a 17-year-old volunteer there. She and others say Stavrou gave them alcohol at theater events even though they were underage, and that he would touch female volunteers. Though he did not touch her in an inappropriate manner when she was a minor.

KATIE HAWLEY: There was a lot of face-rubbing, arm-grazing. And it became a thing where people would just say, oh, well, that's Gregory.

CATHARINE RICHERT: But two years later in 2010 at Pescara, an upscale restaurant in Rochester, Hawley, who was then 19, says Stavrou went too far. They were having dinner with Stavrou's girlfriend and another young theater volunteer. Hawley says Stavrou told her she reminded him of an old love with nice legs.

KATIE HAWLEY: And then he wanted to see my legs and started reaching his hand up my skirt.

CATHARINE RICHERT: Hawley wanted to leave, but she and her friend worried Stavrou and his girlfriend were drunk, so they drove them home. And that's when Hawley says Stavrou suggested group sex.

KATIE HAWLEY: He tells his girlfriend, take them upstairs and seduce them.

CATHARINE RICHERT: Hawley kept her experience quiet, and so did Elizabeth Brophy, who worked for the theater's youth program for seven years. For years, Brophy said she changed the way she dressed and behaved to stop Stavrou's unwanted touches and comments about her body. And she never reported Stavrou's unwelcome kiss on the lips at a theater party in 2012.

ELIZABETH BROPHY: You're my boss. You provide my paycheck. I don't want to make a scene that would affect that. But you did just grab me and kiss me in public. What do I do here?

MARANN FAGET: So you see the lining?

CATHARINE RICHERT: Marann Faget owns a custom clothing and costume shop in Rochester.

MARANN FAGET: When I was there for two years at RCT, I made over 200 pieces of clothing.

CATHARINE RICHERT: Her tenure at the theater overlapped with Stavrou's for two years. She says Stavrou aggressively demanded a kiss from her at a theater event after she'd stopped working there. Faget's frustrated it took so long for allegations of bad behavior to surface. But she also points out women doubt they'll be taken seriously, and they fear being savaged if they speak up.

MARANN FAGET: I'm a 56-year-old woman. You look at me, and they'll go, oh, yeah, like Gregory's going to try and kiss you. And you get raked over the coals.

CATHARINE RICHERT: While women like Katie Hawley and Elizabeth Brophy were silent, another complaint, in addition to Melanie Ellsworth's, reached the theater's board before March 2017. In 2011, volunteer Jonathan Allan wrote board member Sharon Tennis. He complained about Stavrou's drinking at theater events, and he warned Stavrou could put the theater, quote, "on the losing end of a sexual harassment lawsuit." In an email response to Allan, Stavrou apologized. He wrote that a comprehensive meeting with Tennis identified follow-up processes and expectations. He also disputed some of Allan's statements as misperceptions.

In March of this year, as The Drowsy Chaperone intermission dispute boiled over, theater volunteers unleashed a flurry of additional complaints about Stavrou, including previously unreported harassment accusations, some of which were anonymous. Those who filed complaints say no one from the current board spoke with them. Board president Heather Holmes said the board took those complaints seriously, though she questions whether complaints dating back years were suddenly surfacing because of the intermission dispute.

HEATHER HOLMES: They were anonymous, and as far as allegations go, we review and investigate all allegations that we have the ability to do so with.

CATHARINE RICHERT: Holmes declined to say more, saying she can't legally discuss personnel issues. She adds that Stavrou left the theater in better financial shape.

HEATHER HOLMES: He was one of the reasons that the institution in the past decade had come out of the red.

CATHARINE RICHERT: But former board member, Lynne Drumm, feels remorse. After the 2008 incident involving Melanie Ellsworth, Drumm told Stavrou never to let it happen again. Now, she says, she realizes it never stopped.

LYNNE DRUMM: I'm hearing from more, and more, and more women who have stories.

CATHARINE RICHERT: A decade later, Drumm wishes the board had done more to address Stavrou's behavior. Catharine Richert, Minnesota Public Radio News, Rochester.