Allegations cost theatre manager his job
Theatre official allegedly harassed minor to do lingerie photo shoot
The manager of the Gladstone Theatre was fired this week following an investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed a minor several years ago.
Details of the harassment were made public earlier this week on Facebook, in a pair of posts by then-manager Don Fex and the woman who complained about him. A public storm followed, and the Gladstone’s board of directors launched an investigation.
In a statement released on Wednesday night, the board announced that Fex was no longer employed by the theatre.
The board said the harassment took place in 2016, before the manager was employed by the theatre but while his company was producing there. The Gladstone did not name the manager or the complainant. However, both Fex and the woman involved wrote candidly about the allegations of harassment on social media this week. Soon after, an open letter signed by more than 700 people on Wednesday called on the theatre to fire Fex.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, the board offered more detail on its actions, saying that “as information was made public, we struggled to adapt thoughtfully. Once HR and legal counsel were obtained, the theatre manager’s employment was terminated in line with employment law.”
Emails and phone calls to Fex on Wednesday and Thursday were not returned.
The open letter refers to a “troubling” Facebook post published by Fex on Aug. 10. In it, Fex wrote of “actions which I have taken in the past that I am not proud of but which I need to publicly take responsibility for.” The post was subsequently deleted, but a copy of it was obtained by the Citizen.
Fex wrote that five years ago he organized a photo shoot with a 16-year-old actor he had worked with before. After the shoot, “I asked if she would be interested in doing a lingerie shoot. She was apprehensive at first but we talked about it more and more, and exchanged several pictures back and forth of style of lingerie and photo ideas,” Fex wrote.
“This was of course extremely inappropriate due to her age — even if she was agreeing to it I should have known better,” he wrote. “In retrospect now I can see that I was being pushy and highly inappropriate.”
The complainant, whom the Citizen has agreed not to identify, wrote her own social media post on Tuesday night, saying that Fex sent multiple pictures that he had taken of women in lingerie and completely naked.
“He told me he wanted to do a photo shoot like this with me, that we would keep it to ourselves and not tell anyone. I told him I did not want to do anything sexual,” she wrote.
“Over the next year and a half, he continued to persistently and unprovokedly bring up doing a sexual photo shoot with me. He asked me to buy lingerie and sent me a list of lingerie stores,” she wrote, adding that Fex acknowledged that his behaviour was inappropriate because of her age and asked that she not tell anyone.
“I want to be clear that never once did I share sexual ideas with him or agree to anything of the sort,” the woman wrote.
On Wednesday evening, Brianna McFarlane, a co-author of the open letter and a former Ottawa theatre critic, said the board’s statement was unsatisfactory because it “brokers no option for further public comment” and offers insufficient transparency about what happened.
Fex has been active on Ottawa’s theatre scene for the past decade and a half. In 2010, Fex ran unsuccessfully to represent Somerset Ward on Ottawa city council. phum@postmedia.com