The former managing artistic director at Lakewood Playhouse resigned July 21 over allegations of sexual misconduct.
Four people have since told The News Tribune that John Munn acted in a sexually inappropriate way with them, and one filed a report with Lakewood police alleging he touched her inappropriately.
No charges were brought after police determined the alleged conduct did not amount to a felony and the statute of limitations on a misdemeanor count had elapsed, the woman told The News Tribune.
“It’s not active,” Lakewood police spokesman Lt. Chris Lawler said in a phone call with The News Tribune this week. “We’re not actively investigating it.”
The playhouse board released findings Tuesday of a third-party investigation into Munn’s conduct.
“The allegations against former Managing Artistic Director John Munn have been found to be credible, and several were corroborated by evidence and witness accounts,” according to a statement released by the playhouse. “After a review of the findings and determination, per our bylaws, John Munn is suspended from any activities at the Lakewood Playhouse for violations of Lakewood Playhouse policies as they pertain to Equal Opportunity and Harassment.”
The playhouse hired a Seattle-based employment lawyer to conduct the investigation. A followup statement from the playhouse acknowledged “reports of sexual harassment (unwelcome sexual comments, jokes and sexual advances), inappropriate levels of trust and intimacy in pursuit of sexual contact (grooming), and unwelcome sexual contact (assault) against John Munn.”
Multiple attempts by The News Tribune to reach Munn through email, phone calls, text messages and social media messages were unsuccessful.
Tacoma native John Munn after he was named managing artistic director of Lakewood Playhouse in February 2012. Munn resigned in July over accusations of inappropriate conduct towards members of the theater. News Tribune file photo
According to a 2012 Patch story, Munn attended high school at Charles Wright Academy in University Place. He first acted at the Tacoma Little Theatre in its Young Actors Program. He attended college at the University of LaVerne in California and Pacific Lutheran University in Parkland.
He previously owned and operated the comic book store Comic Book Ink, which closed eight years ago. Before that Munn was an assistant administrator at Munn’s Manor, a care facility which his father formed.
Erin Manza Chanfrau was on the board at Lakewood Playhouse when Munn was hired in 2012.
In an interview with The News Tribune, Chanfrau said she raised concerns over Munn and later resigned in protest after his selection.
“That’s why I left the board — I was opposed to hiring John Munn. I didn’t want to be responsible when things started going in that direction,” Chanfrau said. “I knew young women who felt they had been harassed by him.”
At the time, Chanfrau thought her stepping down might change the board’s mind.
“I was hoping it would make them reconsider, and I was hoping that it would be a big enough move that they’d think, ‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t do this’,” Chanfrau said. “The other part was self-preservation. I would not want to end up at some point liable for what I thought were legitimate concerns with how he would run the business.”
Munn’s role put him in charge of the organization’s artistic direction, and he was looked to as the “CEO” of the playhouse. He would direct, act, run auditions, bring in choreographers and served as the face of the theater.
The theater, which is now run by eight staff members, began in 1938 and has produced 82 seasons consisting of over 400 shows. In 2015, it celebrated the 50th anniversary of its Lakewood Towne Center theater building.
Munn friendly at first
Ashley Roy has been a performer, choreographer and director for Lakewood Playhouse. It was there that Roy met Munn while the two collaborated on a show.
Roy said that she didn’t know Munn very well but that he was initially friendly to her when she arrived.
“Anyone who has been to the playhouse knows that John is very outwardly focused on this idea of the playhouse being a family,” Roy said. “He’s very, intensely friendly. Very complimentary. That’s really how it started for me and for anyone who has been targeted by him.
“This grooming process of being super complimentary, ‘You are like in the top five of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with in my whole life’ and ‘I trust and I will protect you.’ That kind of language.”
Roy says Munn invited her to his home in November 2017 to watch a movie while he drank to shake off the stress of playing a character during a show. Roy said he told her to keep the evening a secret.
“At the time, he builds this really manufactured trust and relationship right away, so I thought that would be a fine and safe thing to do,” Roy said.
After arriving, Roy said that Munn wanted to play a “question game” and asked about her personal life.
“He starts out with pretty innocuous questions about yourself and they get progressively more explicit,” Roy said. “I had to very clearly state to him that I was not there to sleep with him, that was absolutely not going to happen.”
Later that night, Roy says Munn sexually assaulted her.
The next day, according to Roy, Munn said he did not remember the encounter and that he “blacked out” from drinking.
The News Tribune reviewed a series of messages Munn sent to Roy dating back to 2017.
On Nov. 6 of that year, Munn messaged Roy saying that he “can’t remember” what happened but that he was “sorry for how I have made you feel through my poor judgement in how much I drank for everything I ever did.”
He also pledged to “be professional outside of the theater in all ways.”
On Jan. 20 and March 2, Munn messaged Roy to invite her over to his house again. She said she declined each invitation.
After talking with other members of the Lakewood Playhouse who had similar experiences, Roy decided to file a police report this August. It is the same report Lakewood police said remains closed.
Roy also has a protection order in place. It prohibits Munn from being within 1,000 feet of either Lakewood Playhouse or the Tacoma Little Theatre.
“I realized this was really something bigger and that I had been a part of a really gross pattern for a long time,” Roy said. “There were so many people who had kept this secret for so long or are staying anonymous because they’re afraid of this man.”
A game involving sexual questions
Kayla Crawford was an actor, volunteer and choreographer for the theater. Crawford, who was 22 at the time, met Munn in June 2016 during rehearsal for the musical comedy “Avenue Q.”
“He was very charming. He was good at making you feel special,” Crawford said. “He would be very secretive about any time that we would spend together.”
She said one such interaction turned into an extended version of the “question game” in Munn’s car.
“Most of the questions, if not all of them, are in regards to sex or sexual activities or scenarios, which is very awkward when you’re in the car with someone driving,” Crawford said.
“I thought I had a friend until it became a very inappropriate thing that made me feel uncomfortable.”
Crawford says Munn invited her to his home multiple times. She said he drank and said it must be kept a secret.
In one encounter, Crawford recalls that she explicitly said “please don’t do anything” and that they should just “hang out, watch the movie, and I’ll go home.”
Crawford says she was concerned about the presence of alcohol, as she considers herself an alcoholic, and that previous nights she had woken up in Munn’s bed naked without knowing how she got there.
“He usually would have two bottles sitting out in front of the couch and at least one would be finished,” Crawford said. “He would just let it sit there and drink. As an alcoholic, I would make a deal I would only have a couple which would turn into me blacking out.”
“I do not remember giving consent to sexual activities,” Crawford said. “… especially since I didn’t want to do certain things. I set certain boundaries — those boundaries were pushed and gone over.”
On one occasion, Crawford says she confronted Munn about what happened. Crawford said Munn “threw a blanket over his head and ran into his bedroom like a child because he didn’t want to hear it.”
“The fact that I woke up with no clothes on,” Crawford said. “He didn’t want to address that. It was incredibly childish.”
Crawford said she thought her experience was an isolated incident until learning later that others had similar stories.
“I thought I was the only one. From what I heard from him, I was the only person,” Crawford said. “When he stepped down was when I first started hearing about it and I wasn’t shocked unfortunately.”
Former Lakewood Playhouse managing artistic director John Munn, center, is embraced by the cast of “Pirates of Penzance” in this June 2017 publicity photo. Munn has now since been accused of harassment and assault by members of the theater. Lakewood Playhouse Courtesy
‘Inappropriate and sexual’
Samantha Story-Camp, 49, was an actress with Lakewood Playhouse, though was never in a Munn-directed show.
Story-Camp said she first had direct contact with Munn in 2010. She said it quickly got out of hand when Munn obtained her phone number.
“It was immediately inappropriate,” Story-Camp said. “Within minutes of him getting my phone number, the text messages started.”
Story-Camp said she fielded invasive and prying questions into her personal life from Munn.
“He would start asking 20 questions,” Story-Camp said. “They would instantly go inappropriate and sexual.”
Story-Camp said it became a cycle of pushing the questions away, Munn waiting a few days and then asking them again.
It got to the point where Story-Camp says she gave Munn an ultimatum.
“When John messaged again, I was like, ‘Look, if you send me another one of these I’m either going to call the cops or your wife but I’ll let you pick,’” Story-Camp said. “I thought that was that end of it.”
After rejecting his advances, Story-Camp alleges Munn went on a “smear campaign” to damage her reputation. She claims Munn said discouraging things about her to other directors and that it cost her work.
Dale Westgaard, who directed the show “Arsenic and Old Lace” at the playhouse in 2013, said he recalls having such a conversation with Munn about Story-Camp. He said he had two members of his cast experience medical problems that took them out of the show and was considering casting Story-Camp as a replacement.
“Samantha I’d worked with on an insurance improv thing that we did and she was great. I suggested her to John,” Westgaard said. “He told me that if I cast Samantha, most of my company would walk out.”
Westgaard said Munn gave no further details, but since he “didn’t really know” the makeup of the theater, he listened to the advice. He didn’t cast Story-Camp.
“Then I discovered that that simply wasn’t true,” Westgaard said. “I would show up at places and people in the cast were there and Samantha was there and everybody was getting along fine.”
The biggest concern for Story-Camp was the members after her who she says became Munn’s next targets.
“That was my fear, was someone else getting hurt,” Story-Camp said. “He was totally casting couching people.”
Violating boundaries
Mickie Milton, 23, got involved with Lakewood Playhouse as a teenager and participated in the youth program at the theater. Milton, who uses they/them pronouns, went on to be involved in two main-stage shows.
Milton said they began talking with Munn from February through July of this year.
“It started out being completely normal,” Milton said. “Then one night he called me around 11, 11:30.
“He started asking me these questions like, ‘What is your favorite body part to admire on your partner? What do you like wearing to bed?’ As I got to know John more, he’s somebody that pushes past boundaries.
“You will place a boundary and he’ll go ‘OK, I won’t go past it.’ Five minutes later he’s already going past that boundary.”
It was from there that Milton says Munn tried to get them to come over to his house.
“I told him I was completely uncomfortable one time upfront. He told me that if I felt comfortable I could come over to his house and watch his old porn videos with him while he drank and I smoked,” Milton said. “I told him I’m not comfortable with that.
“He tries to play this father role and then turns it into he just wants to (have sex with) you. It’s disgusting.”
Milton was frustrated that no one took their concerns seriously when they began to talk to other members of the theater community.
“I started talking to theater colleagues in the area and everyone was like, ‘Oh John, not John.’ Looking back on it, a lot of people that I brought it up to honestly dismissed it, which is pretty disappointing to say the least,” Milton said.
Playhouse pledges change
In response to emailed questions, the Lakewood Playhouse said the organization “will be rewriting the entirety of our policies” to “include the adoption of the Chicago Theater Standards, our Concern Resolution Pathways, Diversity, Inclusion and Representation, and the addition of mandatory training for our staff, designers, and volunteers.”
According to the playhouse website, the Chicago Theater Standard “provides a definition for sexual harassment in the theatrical workplace for participants not covered by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) laws and other regulations and provides an understanding of and sensitivity to the nuances of a theatrical workplace.”
The Concern Resolution Pathways will be the manner in which concerns can be raised, including in writing that can be dropped “in a secure location that is not readily available to general employees.”
The section of the playhouse website devoted to these policies says there is “more to come.”
The playhouse also said new training will be built around “recognizing and preventing forms of discrimination and harassment” as well as “mandatory reporting procedures.”
Training will be given “prior to our return to in-house work, which will be sometime after January 1st, 2021.”
Outside of the Lakewood Playhouse on Wednesday, Roy and Milton reflected on the statement from the board announcing the results of the internal investigation, which they felt fell short of what was needed.
“I thought it was the most careless, disappointing, disturbing, abuser-protecting, white knight-shielding for John Munn,” Milton said. “I’m not happy.”
Roy raised concerns over transparency and decried the statement’s lack of details.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that it wasn’t sufficient by the fact that you can’t tell what happened by reading it,” Roy said. “The average person would have no idea what happened at the playhouse. They did not give an apology. None of us got an apology.
“They acknowledged none of their role in it.”
Heather Hinds and James Venturini, interim co-managing artistic directors at Lakewood Playhouse, released a further statement following criticism over the earlier statement.
The statement said they “apologize to the victims of harassment and assault” and anyone “who attempted to file a formal or informal complaint of any nature who was not treated with respect and compassion.”
“We condemn John Munn’s actions and behavior both inside and outside of the Lakewood Playhouse that have caused hurt, fear and degraded the community’s trust in us.”
This story was originally published October 2, 2020 at 5:50 AM.
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Chase Hutchinson was a reporter and film critic at The News Tribune. He covered arts, culture, sports, and news from 2016 to 2021.You can find his most recent writing and work at www.hutchreviewsstuff.com
