Emma Crowley Bennett laughs that getting into drama school was one of her greatest achievements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s \u2018depressing\u2019, she chuckles, heavy with hindsight. When she opened the acceptance letter and cried in delight with her mum, Emma didn\u2019t know her time at East 15 acting school, from 2014 to 2017, would subject her to daily abuse from her drama teacher, veiled by the concept of \u2018high art\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Newcastle-born Emma, 31, chose East15 for its experimental reputation. It was her first choice. \u2018It has clowning, mime, all the wild stuff. I didn\u2019t know what physical theatre was, but I knew that\u2019s exactly what I wanted to do,\u2019 she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she stepped into the rehearsal room, Emma was primed to be challenged, undone, and put back together again, as was the expectation of drama school: to erode its students into perfectly malleable artistic instruments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was only in 2024 that Emma realised what she and her contemporaries went through was daily abuse at the hands of an exploitative professor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018We were naked every day,\u2019 Emma says. \u2018I would sometimes pretend I was on my period, other women would as well. We\u2019d say, \u201cOh I\u2019m just going to keep my knickers on today.\u201d\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
He made them beat each other with books, to the point where one boy bled. \u2018To begin with it was silly, clowning, but then\u2026 He\u2019d say, \u201cNow do it naked\u201d. We would do anything he said.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I got beaten naked,\u2019 Emma says. \u2018There\u2019s actually a photo of this guy\u2019s back. It\u2019s bleeding. And he knelt over a mirror, and the mirror smashed, he got glass all in himself. At no point did this director say, \u201cStop now\u201d.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Emma was asked to imitate oral sex until she gagged. \u2018I had to start this show overdosing. Three of my classmates would come over and pretend to put a tube around my mouth and I\u2019d convulse. They didn\u2019t need to do that, because it was acting, I was holding the tube anyway. But before we did it, he said, \u201cOh, we need to see how far something can go down Emma\u2019s throat before she gags,\u201d\u2019 she remembers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Someone in my class had to put a banana down my throat, as far as it would go, till I gagged, and then mark it.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Emma doesn\u2019t remember fully, but thinks she was \u2018probably naked\u2019 at the time. They were naked most days, so she was likely naked and lying on a perspex box.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another instance saw the male students imitate rape on the women in the group.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018All the women had to lie on the floor, and the boys in the class would pick someone, and then he would go over and simulate having sex with them, but we weren\u2019t allowed to move.\u2019<\/p>\n
This professor filmed the entire rehearsal process. \u2018He filmed the whole thing. Everything we did every day. He filmed it all. He filmed everything and just kept it on his iPad. So all of this is somewhere.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
He would keep them coming back and doing whatever he said again and again by dangling their futures in front of them, telling them they would tour this show in China, all over the world. Of course, that never happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n