Laura Stearns
THE ADVOCATE
Laura is a theater maker, writer, consultant, community activist, and a sexual violence awareness and prevention advocate. As a founding member of the Minnesota Theater Accountability Coalition, she was co-editor of The Minnesota Theater Foundational Standards for Safety and Accountability, and The Minnesota Theater Standards for Education and Learning Spaces.
Her experience as a civil litigant against the Children’s Theater Company (CTC) in Minneapolis for institutional neglect helped inform training for the field of Civil Litigation Advocacy and brought much needed attention for more stringent and robust policies and procedures for child protection in Theater Arts production and education.
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She sits on the Executive Board for CTA Wellness, a fund established to support the mental, emotional, and physical well-being of those like her, who were impacted as children at CTC in the sixties, seventies, and eighties.
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Her testimony at the State Legislature supported the removal of the Statute of Limitations for rape victims in Minnesota. The memoir of her experience as a victim of child sexual abuse and her battle in civil court was released in 2022. In addition to her advocacy work, she is an accomplished actor and has worked extensively in theater production both on and off stage for more than four decades. She has dedicated herself to making safe spaces for artists of all mediums and ages to do their best work.
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To purchase Laura's Memoir in Paperback or Audio Book, CLICK HERE.
More about CTC:
In December of 2015, Laura was the first litigant to file a civil suit under the MN Child Victims Act against the company actor that raped her in 1983, Jason McLean, and the Minneapolis theater institution that harbored and protected him, The Children’s Theatre Company and School (CTC). By May 2016 a total of seventeen lawsuits were filed against CTC and or the perpetrators of child sexual abuse endured by students at CTC. Dozens of sexual predators were identified through the investigation that ensued.
To learn more about what happened at CTC from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s, please see the articles and news clips below:
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https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/07/innocence-lost-childrens-theatre-abuse-survivors-justice
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https://thecommunitycouncil.medium.com/ctc-community-council-report-c57238c35fc7