Shattered: Exposing the Open Secret of the Children's Theatre Scandal

Shattered: Exposing the Open Secret of the Children's Theatre Scandal by Stearns, Laura. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781950743902.

John Clark Donahue was considered a brilliant but difficult artistic genius in American theater in the 1970s and 80s. His theater, the Children’s Theatre Company and School (CTC), rose to the heights of critical acclaim. It was also a home to more than two dozen sexual perpetrators. In 1984, Donahue’s arrest for sexually abusing male students threatened to close the theater’s curtains for good. The theater endured and the full truth of what was happening behind the scenes was swept under the rug, until now. Laura Stearns’ memoir follows her process of coming to terms with experiencing childhood sexual violence at CTC, of recognizing the depth of harm from a complicit culture which allowed child abuse at the theater to go unchecked for decades, and her journey of growing beyond trauma to a place of strength. She does so with unflinching honesty, lighthearted compassion, and a healthy dose of trauma informed education.