Quebec judge rules that Guy Sprung’s suspension from the actors’ association was “unjustified”

Director and playwright Guy Sprung was suspended by the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association several years ago after several actors were so uncomfortable with his approach to a new play that they filed a complaint against him. Now, a Quebec Superior Court judge has ruled that the suspension was “unjustified,” arguing that the actors “lacked professionalism.”

The March 2024 decision, which has not yet been made public, describes Sprung’s attempt to stage a new play at Montreal’s Infinithéâtre in March 2020 that uses the career of Charles Dickens’ son in the North-West Mounted Police in the late 19th century to present “an ironic deconstruction of colonial attitudes toward Indigenous peoples,” wrote Justice Mark Phillips.

Although the piece Keep fighting!was shut down when pandemic lockdowns were introduced this month, the decision said, but almost simultaneously it was derailed by the exit of several actors. Some members of the cast took issue with Sprung’s script and storytelling, in some cases demanding revisions or changes to their own lines. Four actors later filed a complaint with Equity claiming they had been discriminated against and the workplace had become unsafe, prompting the union to hire an outside investigator to assist a disciplinary committee.

Sprung was subsequently stripped of his access to union benefits. He appealed, but when the appeal was dismissed, he went to court to contest the proceedings. In his decision, Judge Phillips named Sprung as the aggrieved party and placed the blame on the actors.

“At least some of the actors,” the judge wrote, “seemed to believe they were in some sort of improvisational or workshop environment where they could critique the script, suggest changes, and in one case even rewrite their own lines as they saw fit.” If an actor felt uncomfortable with Sprung’s approach, he continued, “then he or she should simply have declined to participate in the production.”

The union politely objected to the ruling.

“While we do not necessarily agree with the judge’s assessment of the outside investigator’s report, we respect his decision to overturn the disciplinary committee’s original decision based on that report,” Equity Council Chair Scott Bellis said in an email. “We remain confident that we can address unprofessional conduct in the workplace when it occurs.”

Sprung said in an interview that he hoped the ruling would establish what boundaries should be respected by professionals in Canadian theatre: “It makes it clear that when an actor signs a contract, he signs a contract to write a script. He cannot then expect to rewrite the script according to his own needs or desires.”

The decision states that one of the complainants had had a copy of the script for almost three months before he signed his contract on the first day of rehearsals – but had not read the script until that day.

Sprung, 77, has had a long career in Canada and abroad, co-founding London’s Half Moon Theatre in the 1970s and serving as artistic director of several institutions, including the former Toronto Free Theatre.

He had held workshops Keep fighting! For several years, the project has been trying to solicit the views of members of the M’Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island, the court filing says, as well as Drew Hayden Taylor, a playwright originally from the Curve Lake First Nation in Ontario.

Taylor had even recorded a commentary to be played during performances of the play. He said by phone this week that while theater is a “shared adventure,” his understanding of Sprung’s situation meant more.

“Any playwright who is unwilling to listen to the actors is certainly a problematic playwright, but there is a difference between a dialogue and a demand,” Taylor said. “I am very conscious of the collaborative nature of theater, but some of the things that were asked of the actors I found quite astonishing.”

During the workshop phase, Sprung and his collaborators decided that every time one of the 19th-century characters used the words “savage” or “Indian,” they would sound a “curse jar,” a metallic “ping” that indicated a donation to the Native Women’s Shelter in Montreal.

Casting for Keep fighting! was completed in late 2019 and is scheduled to be performed at the Infinithéâtre, where Sprung was also artistic director.

The decision does not name the actors involved, but says the cast had mixed reactions to Sprung’s script. Three Indigenous actors wrote a note for the play’s program that said, “Hopefully, through this theatrical reinterpretation, settler audiences can find a way into a much larger and more complex conversation.”

Elsewhere, the decision states, a plaintiff said a character she was playing was “not feminist enough for her, but too much of a 19th century Dickensian.” One plaintiff’s agent sent Sprung a “list of complaints” that spoke of a “lack of recognition of the special achievements that arise from the life experiences of these actors.”

Actors began walking out of the production, and in January 2021, four cast members filed a joint complaint against Sprung through Equity. Equity’s disciplinary committee found Sprung “guilty of discrimination and inappropriate conduct,” the November 2021 decision states, and imposed a one-year suspension that barred him from accessing Equity services such as insurance or retirement plans.

Equity said this would not have affected his ability to work on other productions, adding that the suspension was actually put on hold because of the legal process and Sprung did not serve any part of it.

Sprung, however, said he sued the union to refute any allegations that he was a racist. “I didn’t like the idea of ​​taking my own association – I’ve been a member for 50 years – to court, but I had no choice. I had to do it,” he said.