In this conversation, Laura Stearns shares her journey as an actor, author, and advocate for trauma survivors. She discusses her experiences with childhood trauma, the impact of her time in the theater community, and her healing process.

Chapters
00:00
Introduction to Laura Stearns
01:42
Exploring Trauma and Healing
04:03
The Impact of Childhood Experiences
06:09
The Role of Institutions in Abuse
08:28
Personal Stories of Assault
11:04
The Aftermath of Trauma
12:59
Marriage and Relationships Post-Trauma
15:06
Legislative Changes and Advocacy
17:43
Public Disclosure and Its Consequences
20:38
Understanding Trauma in the Arts
22:08
The Healing Journey and Self-Discovery
26:36
Navigating Identity and Relationships
30:48
The Impact of Trauma on Society
32:24
Current Projects and Future Aspirations
35:49
Living Authentically and Trusting Your Gut

Summary
In this conversation, Laura Stearns shares her journey as an actor, author, and advocate for trauma survivors. She discusses her experiences with childhood trauma, the impact of her time in the theater community, and her healing process. Laura emphasizes the importance of understanding trauma, the implications of the Child Victims Act, and the role of art in healing. She also shares insights from her memoir and her current projects, highlighting the need for community and support for survivors.

Takeaways
Laura's journey through trauma began in childhood.
The theater community can harbor hidden dangers.
Understanding false core beliefs is crucial for healing.
The Child Victims Act allows survivors to seek justice.
Art can be a powerful tool for healing and expression.
Community support is vital for trauma survivors.
Litigation can be a re-traumatizing experience.
Self-discovery is a key part of the healing process.
Sharing stories helps build connections and understanding.
Trusting one's gut is essential for personal growth.

Laura Stearns' Bio
Laura studied theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has been working in professional theater since the age of thirteen. As a theater maker in the Twin Cities, which included twelve years on staff at the world-renowned Guthrie Theater, Laura has worked with some of the most talented artists from around the world, both on and off stage. Laura is an accomplished actor and director with a diverse skill set that has given her the opportunity to work in almost every department of theater production as a manager, technician, and designer. Now living in Southern California, she is the winner of the 2024 Desert Theatre League Award for Best Direction of The Woman in the Mirror. She also designed and fabricated the puppets for Avenue Q at Revolution Stage Company. Palm Springs audiences will recognize Laura from her performances this past season as Norma Baxter in Perfect Arrangement at The Bent, and Dr. Charlotte in Falsettos at Dezart Performs. She is also the author of Shattered: Exposing the Open Secret of the Children’s Theatre Scandal and Daring to Heal: Growing Beyond Trauma Through Awareness, Acceptance, and Action, co-author of The Minnesota Theater Standards for Safety and Accountability and co-founder of the Minnesota Theater Accountability Coalition. Her testimony at the state legislature supported the removal of the criminal Statute of Limitations for rape victims in the state of Minnesota. As a proud member of Actors Equity Association and an associate with the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Laura is a fierce advocate for safe spaces in theater production and education. 

Learn more about Laura at http://www.laurastearns.com

LAURA STEARNS
she/her/hers
Artist ~ Advocate ~ Consultant
Actor- SAG/AFTRA ~ AEA
Director- Associate, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society
Intimacy Direction - IDC Consent Forward Artist Certified

Words and Actions Matter 



Contact Wilkinson: www.BecomingWilkinson@gmail.com

Transcript

Wilkinson (00:00)
Greetings. My gosh, I got a lady here now. How you doing, Laura? I'm great. So for my people, this is Laura Stearns. She is an amazing actor. She's an author. She's a director. She's a whole bunch of stuff. But I met her, I saw her first at the Bent Theater. And we've kind of see each other coming and going there because I obviously was involved there for a while.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (00:03)
You're a girl! I'm a real girl! How's it going? How are you, Wilkinson?

Wilkinson (00:26)
She's amazing. And what was the one I liked? The two couples.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (00:29)
Perfect arrangement

is the show that you saw me in there, think, most recently. Perfect arrangement? Yeah.

Wilkinson (00:32)
What, which one? Yes. Yes. Yes. You're

amazing. And you're Sherlyn's costuming on you. I still think of that. my God. I always chat with my guests beforehand and it seems like we've had a little bit of parallel lives. So.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (00:44)
I mean, we

have a lot in common. It's just interesting. ⁓ I was listening to your story. I we've met several times, but I don't really know you. And now I feel like I'm getting to know

Wilkinson (00:46)
Yeah.

Thank you.

Right.

And you haven't run, you haven't run away. That's good. All right, so let's dig in. Where do you want to start? What do you want to talk about first?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (01:01)
I haven't. No, I'm still here.

What do you want to talk about? You're the interviewer.

Wilkinson (01:08)
⁓ Well,

let's do a general thing. So you have written two books, which usually I try to read before I interview somebody, but I'm going to learn today with all of my listeners. So here we go. And I have a copy of the second one, which you were so gracious to give me, which is called, well, tell about it. What's the name of it?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (01:18)
What happened this time? Okay.

Of course.

So

the newest book is called Daring to Heal, Growing Beyond Trauma Through Awareness, Acceptance, and Action. And it is basically the answer to, in writing, a memoir that I wrote a few years ago about my experience as a child of sexual violence. I should say I'm a child of sexual violence. I was a child and experienced sexual violence. And...

Wilkinson (01:44)
Wow.

Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (01:49)
that journey of coming to terms with what happened to me. It happened in a theater environment, well, one of the times that it did. And so what that did to me as an actor, as a performer, as a creative, and then the journey of...

coming to terms with that, but also making people accountable for what happens. So that's what the memoir is, and this book is more about my healing process.

Wilkinson (02:08)
Do want to talk to me more about the memoir or do want to just dive into this one?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (02:11)
No,

I can talk about the memoir. mean, it sets some foundation. Yeah, yeah. So the first time I was assaulted, I was 10 years old. And it happened in my bedroom. And I don't want to call this person a friend of my brother's because it was no friend. He was an acquaintance. And so he assaulted me in my bedroom. And that set a way of thinking for me that really

Wilkinson (02:13)
Just kind of give a general framework of what happened.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (02:32)
influenced kind of the way that I was in the world, particularly with men, ⁓ which is typical. But prior to that, I had already set some pretty solid beliefs around who I was in the world and what I was supposed to do in the world, which we do. mean, all children do that. We make decisions. I refer to them as false core beliefs because they're usually based on the understanding of a child.

Wilkinson (02:37)
Okay.

Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (02:57)
So since a child doesn't really understand all the dynamics of the thing that's going on around them, they make decisions based on their understanding. And then what we do is we take that understanding and it runs the rest of our life. So if you don't really look at those and parse them out and figure out what they are, you're basically living your life based on the understanding of the child. So when I was assaulted the first time, I already had some ideas around what the world was and who I was supposed to be in it.

Wilkinson (03:02)
Right?

Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (03:23)
Then I was assaulted when I was a child actor and a student at Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, which Children's Theatre is still there today. It is the largest children's theater in the country, world renowned. And back when I was there, the person who started the theater company, his name is John Clark Donoghue, and he was what many people would refer to as a difficult genius.

And he also happened to be a pedophile and he was a known pedophile, which is what's so crazy to me through all of the things that I've learned since then. But he was first arrested in 1961 and charged with what did they call it? I guess they called it sodomy of a child. And he went to jail. And then within five years, he was running a theater company for children. So it's sort of mind boggling, but

Wilkinson (04:09)
How is that possible?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (04:12)
you know, if you think about the time people were not talking about how children were being abused. Mandated reporting didn't become a thing until 1975. So before that, children, weren't even really thinking about them, which is another reason why within the church, there just wasn't regulation. Like people weren't paying attention. It's like children were sort of still in this like seen but not heard category.

Wilkinson (04:23)
Okay.

Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (04:38)
So things that were happening to children just weren't on the radar. so that theater company grew and grew and became this mammoth institution in the city of Minneapolis. And it grew at the same time that the Guthrie Theater was growing in Minneapolis. The Guthrie was the first regional theater in the country. And it was all this attention. And it really established, Guthrie coming there, established the art scene.

in Minneapolis as being a hub in the Midwest. so Children's Theater kind of grew at that same time. And so now today they're the two largest theaters in Minneapolis. And the theater survived this scandal of Mr. Donahue being arrested in 1984 for molesting boys, largely because the board of directors just

kind of threw the kids under the bus and they made sure that the institution survived. yeah.

Wilkinson (05:32)
So wait, so wait a minute. what

1961 was the first charge?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (05:37)
The first charge, became, he started working for the theater in 1963. It became what it is today, the Children's Theater Company.

Wilkinson (05:44)
No, no, no.

mean, first accusations, what was that? Okay, so what I was wondering was, was there an element of, oh, I got healed or whatever, I found Jesus or something like that, that they overlooked all that? What would cause them to like ignore the fact of this first offense? I mean, it blows my mind.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (05:46)
Yeah, we're 1961.

No, they just didn't pay attention.

⁓ The woman

who knew that hired him at this little theater, it was called the Moppet Players, and she went to college with John and she knew about his arrest and her belief was that she could control him and that artistically he was so valuable because he really was an incredible artist, an incredible director, that she believed that that was more important.

than the fact that he had harmed children. So she thought she could control him. And so that was 1963. And by 1965, he had taken over the theater company and she had been shut aside. And it's like he just went from being a scenic painter to the artistic director within two years. Yeah. And then the next time I did a lot of research for my book and also

Wilkinson (06:34)
Wow.

Wow.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (06:53)
there was a lawsuit later, so a lot of information was gathered for that. But the next time people started talking about being harmed at the theater, I think it was 1967, when some of the rumors really started. And then in 1969, the theater school started that was attached to it because he really wanted to mold young people.

And then the theater that exists today was built in 1975. And it's connected to the Art Institute in Minneapolis. And then so from 1975 to 1984, that was what people consider the heyday of Donohue's reign there. And he attracted a lot of people from around the world. And when I first started working, think one of the first shows that was happening was

Wilkinson (07:25)
Okay.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (07:42)
kidnapped in London, it was designed by Tanya Mizejevic, which is one of the premier European set designers. I mean, like that's the kind of level of artists that were being attracted to this place. So for Minneapolis, for the people, the city council, for businesses, they loved what Donahue was creating because it made Minneapolis appealing. So they didn't want him to fail.

Wilkinson (07:48)
Wow

Wow.

Right. Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (08:09)
They wanted that theater to succeed. So they did everything they could, supported it in so many different ways. National Endowment

for the Arts, huge Rockefeller Foundation, huge donations from that. I it's quite stunning how much support the theater had. And while that's all happening and all that visual from the outside, people seeing all the success of the theater, children are being routinely abused by multiple people.

Wilkinson (08:22)
Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (08:32)
not just Donahue. So by the time I got there in 1980, 81 season, there was, I come to find later, 15 of the perpetrators that were identified were there at the time that I was a student. So it was like, I refer to it as fishing in a barrel. Like we were just there for the pickings. not all children were abused.

Wilkinson (08:33)
Wow.

Wow. ⁓

Right. ⁓

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (08:58)
But the ones that were vulnerable to predators, and of course predators know who those children are, they have like special radars, they figure it out, or they talk to each other, they know that children will be, are easily manipulated. So for me, I had already been assaulted by the time I got there, I had already been assaulted. So I was primed and ready for somebody else to abuse.

So, I

Wilkinson (09:22)
So when,

when you were telling, saying all that the picture, I, cause I get pictures a lot, it was almost like a wounded, say a dough, but you're, you're wounded from number one. So, so that's part of who you are. And then they can smell the blood basically. Yeah.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (09:33)
Right.

That's right. That's right. I mean, it's

a sad analogy, but accurate. Yeah. So that in the midst of all of that, what we're doing is we're creating some of the most beautiful art in theater in the country. It is so well renowned. I mean, I just, we refer to it as magical, a lot of us, because it really was magical. It felt like we were a part of something that was really.

Wilkinson (09:41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (10:03)
And as theater students, was there all the time. I was in shows, I was in school there. I actually lived, ended up moving into apartment nearby so that I could have easier access to being in the theater. I was there 24 seven. I slept in the theater sometimes. Like I was there all the time. So I was really, I also refer to it as sort of drinking the Kool-Aid. And I talk about it kind of in terms of it being cultish and it really was, it was a cult personality, not a religious cult. ⁓ But those of us who,

Wilkinson (10:24)
Right.

Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (10:30)
drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak, we really bought into the family quality of what we were experiencing. So we got embedded in this sense of belonging that was also very tethered to our artistry. So we dealt with the things that were coming at us. I was assaulted, didn't tell anybody because I wanted the gifts that I was.

Wilkinson (10:52)
Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (10:55)
you know, getting while I was a, an

Wilkinson (10:57)
Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (10:58)
actor. So it finally fell apart in 1984 when Donnie, was arrested. So, um, there were three people, three boys who had been assaulted, who came forward within the statute of limitations. Cause here's the thing about sexual violence. Usually there's three to seven years of a statute.

Wilkinson (11:05)
What triggered that?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (11:22)
where you can file a lawsuit against somebody criminally. And that's true in most states. There are a few now, including the state of Minnesota, that have gotten rid of those statutes. But at that time, I think it was three years. So as a child, if you're assaulted and you don't even recognize or realize that you've been assaulted, that statute has gone long before you can do anything about it. So.

Wilkinson (11:40)
Right. Right.

Right, right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (11:47)
So these three young people, which was amazing, these are young

boys, young men, filed lawsuits, it wasn't a lawsuit because that's a civil case, they actually pressed charges against Donahue and he was arrested. And he pled guilty to, or admitted to 16 cases, 16 boys. And he...

Wilkinson (12:00)
Right.

Whoa

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (12:12)
had, I think it was seven charges that were reduced to less because of whatever reasons, know, legally they can get rid of some of them. So when they did the sentencing for him, he was sentenced to one year in the workhouse, not prison, but the workhouse. And he only did 10 months for good behavior. And then when he left,

Wilkinson (12:30)
What?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (12:33)
He went into

like a work program where he could go out into the world and had a job. And it just so happened to be that the theater community was what hired him. So the theater community, knowing what he had done, embraced him back into the theater community after 10 months in the workhouse. So that's the level of denial that was going on in Minneapolis. Like people just did not want to believe that all this stuff was happening. Or they went, those boys.

they wanted it, they wanted it because they got the part or whatever it is, they made their excuses. But the thing that was hidden was what was going on with the girls because we were also being assaulted, but girls being assaulted is normal. I have one friend that went to a stage manager and told that stage manager that one of the interns had raped her.

Wilkinson (13:03)
Wow.

What?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (13:21)
And she said, this female stage manager said to her, welcome to the world, now you're a woman.

Wilkinson (13:24)
Wow.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (13:29)
Yeah. So it's a time

also, I think people think about it in that, you know, there was free love of the sixties and the seventies. were still kind of figuring out what that all meant. And so there was that mentality of sex is just a thing, you know? It wasn't like having sex with a child wasn't considered criminal. It is now because we have different mandates in place. And,

Wilkinson (13:41)
Right.

Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (13:55)
Anyway, that's what I, that was my

Wilkinson (13:56)
Wow.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (13:58)
high school. I was there from 1980, 81 season to 1984, 85 season. So I graduated from there. Donahue was arrested in 84. I graduated in 85 and the school closed in 1986. So the school didn't survive, but the theater did. And so I, after that experience, you know, having been assaulted for a second time at the age of 15,

Wilkinson (14:13)
Okay.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (14:21)
I was raped two more times before I turned 20. So that's also really common. And once it happens once, it's more likely to happen again. If it happens twice, it's even more likely that the statistics get higher and higher. Because a victim feels like they deserve it, they're vulnerable to it. People who are predators understand and they recognize the signs of vulnerability and they take it.

Wilkinson (14:33)
Why is that? That doesn't make sense to me.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (14:46)
That's a lot. So hi!

Wilkinson (14:47)
So at some point you got married.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (14:49)
At point I got married. Yeah, I met my ex-husband at the age of 20. So when I met him, I'd already been assaulted four times. And so I was still kind of coming out of that harm. And my ex, his name is Lee, I'll just say that. Lee was, he's a big dude. He was like, I think of him as a protector. He was a badass.

So for me, I felt safe with him and that was what I really needed. I needed to feel safe. So that was a huge quality of attraction for me with that person. Then we got married, had a couple of kids and a few years into, let's see, I'd say maybe 10 years into our marriage. so I had my little kids.

Lee was saying things to me like, you know, there's something really wrong going on in you. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I just didn't really understand what he was talking about. And he said, you go away. I'm like, what do mean? I'm right here. He's like, no, you literally like, you just go away. You're not there. I look in your eyes, you're not there. You go away for days. You're not present to the kids. You're not, and I'm like, I just didn't see it. I really didn't see it.

Wilkinson (15:52)
Right. Wow. Wow.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (16:01)
And that now, of course I understand that now is post-traumatic stress disorder. But I didn't know that that was what was going on at the time. So we sort of asked him. He did, yeah, I did share with him over the years, revealed different pieces of it. And eventually he knew my whole story. And the funny thing is when I, he had been a theater person too as a young person, I went to

Wilkinson (16:09)
Did he know your background when you got married?

Okay.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (16:27)
a theater school or, you know, theater for young people in Boston, which is where he was from. So I thought he would really understand my experience as a theater kid. Like that was something that we had in common. So we met in Boston. He would understand the culture, exactly. So when we came to Minneapolis, I met him in Boston when I was living there, we came to Minneapolis, moved there, and I brought him to the Children's Theater because I wanted to show him this cool theater that, you know, it's like,

Wilkinson (16:32)
Right.

Because he would understand the culture of that and all that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (16:55)
This was my home and I told him the stories and he'd heard some of them already, but I told him more in depth. And after we were done and we're walking away from the theater and I was like, isn't this an incredible place? And he goes, Laura, this is not normal. I was like, what do you mean? He goes, that is not normal what happened to you. And I was, think 22, 21, 22. And that was the first time I realized that something had happened that wasn't right.

Wilkinson (17:22)
So you didn't understand the severity of all that at that point. Okay, okay.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (17:24)
No, no, I really didn't

understand. And that's because I was a child. I didn't have the ability to understand. And even being assaulted, I was like, I felt responsible for it, which is common, especially for women, very common to feel responsible for the assault.

Wilkinson (17:29)
Right.

Right.

And the bad guy wants you to feel that way, of course. Yep. Wow. Yikes. I'm saying wow a lot. I know that's not a normal word I use, it's just like, wow. Yikes.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (17:41)
they encourage that, yeah.

Yeah,

yeah. then fast forward a little bit. In 2013, Minnesota filed or the state legislature wrote the Minnesota Child Victims Act, which was written into law. And what that did was

changed the statute so that there was no longer for criminal, for civil cases, there was no longer a statute of limitations. It was just removed. If you were abused as a child, no longer did you have to, the statutes just didn't apply for civil cases. And that opened a three year window so that people who had been assaulted prior to enacting that law could file a lawsuit against

the institution, an institution like a church or the person who had assaulted them, they could retroactively file a lawsuit. And then in 2016, May of 2016, that window closed. So then after that, anybody who's assaulted after that, there's no statute of limitations, which is amazing. And I think Minnesota was either the third or fourth state to do that. And which state was the first one? California. Because California, right?

Wilkinson (18:57)
Wow. Yikes.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (18:59)
So that

law was enacted and in 2015, in the early part, it was May of 2015, it happened to be the 50th anniversary of Children's Theater. And there was a Facebook group that we had that was a private group and a lot of people were coming from all over the country, even the world, people were coming in for this 50th anniversary.

And that was happening later in the summer. So there's a lot of conversation. And somebody had posted, they were moving, and they had posted a newspaper article that had come out in 1991, which happened to be seven years after Donnie was arrested. all criminal cases, all criminal charges, any additional criminal charges couldn't be filed because the statute was seven years. So in 1991, this article came out, 1991,

Wilkinson (19:46)
Right.

Right,

right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (19:49)
And so this

person had posted this article that they had kept in their stuff and they were just like, remember this? And it was an expose, was a four part series in the Star Tribune newspaper about what had happened at CTC. It was very in depth and not anything that they could have done had the statute not expired because it really exposed a lot of stuff. So this person had saved the article and they put a picture of it.

on the Facebook, this private Facebook page. And it started a conversation and people started talking about their experience. And we were like, yeah, that was bad. You know, we all kind of skirted around it because nobody ever, even at the time, we weren't talking about the harm that was happening. We knew it, we could see it, but nobody was talking about it. Or you'd warn people, watch out for that guy. And then once you've warned them, they're on their own. So people started talking. Of course, now we're adults.

We have families of our own. And people start talking about their experiences and somebody talked about being assaulted. And it started off this chain reaction of people sharing, some of them for the very first time, things that had happened to them as kids. And it was mind blowing. By the time that post was done, there was like 550

people who are not people but responses. So it's this long chain. We refer to it as the thread. it was like, it went on for days and I couldn't break myself away from it. I'm reading these stories and I shared my story on there. said, you know, the person who assaulted me. So it was like this reckoning, this coming out to each other of our experience as kids. And it was profound and deep and hard.

Wilkinson (21:28)
Right, right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (21:33)
And so a few of us after that had happened got together, a few women, and I shared my story with them because we were all kind of sharing our stories in person. And I shared my story and one of the women said, have you heard of the Child Victims Act? And I was like, is that not the thing for the church kids? It could be any other terms. It was the Catholic Church. It was the law that those were the.

Wilkinson (21:53)
Right, right, right, right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (21:59)
that would be addressed. And I went, no, mean, you should read it. You should read it. So I read it and I recognized how much it applied to our experience. And then in August of that year, when the big anniversary happened, the 50 year anniversary, somebody had exposed that thread and showed it to the press. So there was a big story that happened that same weekend of the anniversary.

Wilkinson (21:59)
Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (22:22)
So now there was this anniversary. So now there's a breach of all of this deep trust that we'd had in each other. It just broke everything, so painful. But what it did was caused me as somebody who had, I'd been, because I'd had these conversations with my ex-husband, then husband, about my going away, I had started to look at

Wilkinson (22:23)
Happy anniversary, right?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (22:46)
my trauma and had done some pretty deep therapy, had done a lot of work. So I had already been doing a lot of that foundational work that one needs in order to have a voice around their harm. So I chose with another friend to go and talk to the lawyer who had been in this interview that the news had done this exclusive interview. And this lawyer talked about what had happened at Children's Theater. So we went and talked to him.

Long story short, I filed a lawsuit and I chose to go through with it publicly. So when you do that kind of civil case, you can do it anonymously. Like the people who, know, the lawyers and everybody, know who you are, but publicly you get a number. You'd be like Jane Doe, number 25, or John Doe, number 16, right? So I chose to be Laura Stearns. At the time I was Laura Adams, so was still married.

And I chose to come forward publicly. And because I was pretty prominent in the theater community, it really spoke to a lot of people. And I wanted to use my voice and my position as a known person to bring attention to the issue. So that started a whole journey of me really becoming a kind of an unwanted and unwitting spokesperson for trauma.

Wilkinson (23:49)
Right.

Right.

Right. Right. Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (24:05)
And so I had people coming up to me and asking me questions or telling me their stories, because that's another thing. And you may have that, know that if people feel comfortable, they'll tell you stuff, right? So I had people coming up and

telling me about harm that they had experienced in other theaters, not children's theater, but other theater environments. So I was getting all of these questions and I'm like, I don't have the answers. So I started.

Wilkinson (24:30)
Right, right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (24:32)
looking for the answers. did rape crisis training. I read all of these books. I just like did this deep dive so that when somebody came to me, I would have an answer and be able to go, here's where you need to go. Read this book, go to that person here. Like I just needed, cause that's me. just, if somebody asks me a question, I want to know the answer. So I went on a deep dive

starting in 2015, so it's 10 years ago, of really understanding this kind of harm. And very specifically in theater and in the arts.

Wilkinson (24:52)
Right. Right. Exactly.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (25:02)
because in the arts, there's no oversight. Every industry has oversight. If something happens in corporate world or in medicine, like you have an HR department and you can file and you can, like there's a paper trail that doesn't exist in the

arts. It's crazy, but you know, people can just go from theater to theater or art institution from place.

and there's nothing that stops them from harming in multiple places. That's right. And they can't, that's the thing that's nuts is that like legally you kind of can't do that. Which I can go into a whole other thing about that, but I work with it now. So anyway, I became kind of an expert on trauma just because I needed to understand what was going on and trauma within the arts. So a group of us got together and we wrote the

Wilkinson (25:30)
Right. Nobody tracks them.

Wow.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (25:53)
Minnesota standards for safety and accountability for theater. I just really did this deep dive. And through the course of my litigation process, which was four and a half years, I had to go to therapy because I'll tell you, litigation is one of the hardest things in the world to do, especially if it touches this kind of part of your humanity.

Wilkinson (26:15)
Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (26:15)
It's very, very painful and it's a re-traumatization. So I

needed therapy in the most profound way. So I was doing that and this will come to the story where it kind of parallels a little bit with what you did when you went to Paris and you had your epiphany. I threw all of the therapy that I was doing, was peeling away all of these layers.

Wilkinson (26:31)
Okay, right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (26:38)
and having a lot of profound healing. But I had something that kind of came up and I referred to it like a beach ball that you're trying to hold under the water. And it's got all this tension and pressure. And when you let go, it just goes, boop. And what happened when that happened was, I'm gay. And of course, there's lots of evidence to that. And it makes total sense. But it really was like a wow.

Wilkinson (26:47)
Yeah.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (27:01)
That's the reason I have all of this stuff going on that I don't want to be touched. I fantasize about women all the time. If I don't do that, I can't be sexually active. It's just like, girl, girl, go to the girls, right? So that was a huge piece of my healing process was really understanding that. So.

Boy, I just go talking a lot and you probably have questions.

Wilkinson (27:23)
No, it's fine. So,

I guess one question that just popped up in my head was, so from the people that don't know any better, did they say, those guys made you gay? Have you heard that?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (27:33)
Yes, I have heard that. I actually, not me specifically, but I heard that in another setting where I was with other people and a lesbian was talking about, you know, fearing that that was something that might have happened because she had been assaulted. So I knew of that as being a thing. And I don't think it's what they, that made me gay. It's actually what covered up the fact that I was a lesbian because I was assaulted so early, before I was even sexual, before I even knew what any of that was. I assumed.

Wilkinson (27:34)
which is...

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (28:00)
that I was something that men would find pleasure in or could control. So that's how I lived my life.

Wilkinson (28:08)
So that whole, your experience is just through a blanket over everything and you didn't see anything under the blanket. Yeah, okay.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (28:12)
Exactly. So, and

then also I'll say this.

I knew lesbians when I was younger and to me they all, appearance was they all were butch and to me it seemed like they wanted to be like men. Like they wore clothes that were like men and they were attracted to other women that were very masculine. I'm not attracted to masculine women. I'm a lipstick lesbian but I didn't even know what that was. So.

Wilkinson (28:38)
Right. Right. Okay. Have

you, have you ever owned a truck?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (28:42)
Yes. Okay, I voted G.

Wilkinson (28:42)
Ha ha!

⁓ Subaru. Yeah, come on. Yeah, definitely.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (28:46)
and a Subaru.

Oh, but I have a

Jeep. Yeah. Yes, I have. Yeah. I'll tell you a funny story.

Wilkinson (28:52)
But you do

not hit the look of the butch lady. No, you don't.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (28:57)
No, I don't, but I can play

that too. I can do that. Cause if you see me at, know, tear down and strike, I can wield a Makita as fast as anybody, right? But I went to, I'm gonna jump forward. My oldest son, he and I were, they bought a house. He and his wife bought a house a few years ago and we were walking through Home Depot. I love Home Depot, I'm sorry, I do. And we're walking through there and I'm like, God, I could just.

Wilkinson (29:05)
Yeah

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (29:21)
in here and he started laughing and I was like what? He goes no I can't say it. I'm like okay now you have to say it and he goes okay mom it took you 50 years to figure out you're a lesbian.

So I'm like, okay, yeah, fair. But anyway, so in the 1990s when Ellen came out and I realized that lesbians didn't have to look a certain way, I was already married with two kids. So it didn't even really register to me that I had a choice about, mean, this is what I was doing. This is the life I was living. I'm married and I'm raising kids, that's what I'm doing. So the fact that I'm attracted to women and pretty women,

Wilkinson (29:46)
Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (30:01)
who wear lipstick. well. know? So.

Wilkinson (30:03)
So this is off the wall. Are there a lot of lipstick lesbian women in the valley here? No, it's like, where are they? It's like.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (30:09)
I mean, they're there, they are there. I love to they are. But here's the

thing, and you might find this true for men as well, but the population in Palm Springs, the gay population, is predominantly male. It just is. And women who are here tend to be already partnered up. And maybe that's true for men as well. it's very hard to find, yeah, mean, it's like, are the girls? Where are the girls at?

Wilkinson (30:27)
⁓ absolutely, yeah.

Ha ha ha!

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (30:34)
You got all of these gay bars and then there's like girls night somewhere. yeah, some industrious lesbian needs to start like an awesome coffee shop like an L word or something for Palm Springs.

Wilkinson (30:46)
Somebody might hear that. Let's have that entrepreneur come on, do it.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (30:47)
Maybe.

Alright, so that's a lot. What else? What else?

Wilkinson (30:53)
Okay, so your first book though, so you condensed all of what you've just talked about into that book. Okay.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (30:58)
Yeah, yes. So I

talk about in the first book, I talk about what happened to children's theater, what happened in my young adulthood, my raising kids and what happened with the thread being exposed, the litigation process, which was brutal, my coming out. I talk about all of that stuff. I talk about what happened with the trial and the aftermath of that. I mean, it's very extensive. And when I...

Wilkinson (31:24)
So

without, neither of us really talk about our exes that much, which we don't need to. But you came to the point where you said, I'm a lesbian and this just isn't gonna work anymore. Is that what happened?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (31:28)
Yeah.

Yep.

Pretty much. Yep. Yeah. And my ex was, of course, devastated in many respects because that's not what he wanted. He didn't want to split. But he, within like five minutes of me saying that, was like, this makes sense to me. Because he knew me better than many people. So it really didn't track for him, as painful as it was. And we're better today. We are funding today.

Wilkinson (31:38)
Okay.

Well, I was impressed when

you said that he said you're not there. I was kind of impressed that he caught that because a lot of guys are like,

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (32:06)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, and

yeah, and we, know, one of the hardest things about that marriage splitting is that, you know, I lost one of my best friends really, which is sad. And now we are friendly again. So hopefully we can find way back to some deeper friendship.

Wilkinson (32:19)
Good, good.

So the first book and then this came out of that. Yay, then what?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (32:25)
Yes, well,

I wrote that book, I wrote them sort of simultaneously. My publisher for the memoir, I handed him my manuscript and it was more than 120,000 words, which for people who don't know what that means, it's two books, it really is, it's a lot of words. And so he said, this is two books, we can't do this. But what I wanted...

Wilkinson (32:41)
really?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (32:45)
In the telling of that story of what happened to me, I tell it in a way throughout that's making sure that the reader's being taken care of because there's so much trauma in my story and I want people to take care of themselves. So I give a little bit of information about what trauma is in the memoir. And so that people understand sort of the foundation so that that's what's going underneath the storytelling. But what I really wanted was

Wilkinson (33:09)
Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (33:13)
to weave throughout the memoir, I wanted to weave in this care so that people could learn more about their own trauma if they had stuff coming up or if they knew people who experienced trauma, I wanted them to understand it. But when he said it's two books, I took out all of the stuff that really was more about the healing process and set it aside so it would be a separate book. So that's what this is.

Wilkinson (33:22)
right.

And looking

back at that, are you happy you did that or that he caused you to do that? Okay.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (33:38)
Yeah, absolutely. It was

the smartest choice and I do appreciate that publishers.

Wilkinson (33:44)
Well,

that's what a net editor or publisher is supposed to be doing, right?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (33:47)
Yeah, exactly.

So, it is good because it is now that now people have this very digestible information that doesn't rely on understanding or knowing what

Like you can have read it, but if you haven't read it, it's not gonna it's it'll be fine. I feel like No, and I wanted that to yeah, it's it is it's comprehensive Or it's intentionally not comprehensive I wanted it to be like this is as much information as you need in order to understand the issues Because what I was learning about all is like I said, I went on this deep dive

Wilkinson (34:02)
And it's not gonna kill you. It's not gonna kill you reading this. It's... Yeah.

Right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (34:24)
There were some books that took me a year to read because they were so hard to read. The Body Keeps the Score is the main book that I think of when I think about these resources. And it is such a beautiful book. And I know a lot of people really love it. And I love it too, but it took me so long to read it because I just kept getting triggered and I'd to read a chapter and then I'd set it down for three weeks. So.

Wilkinson (34:33)
Okay, right.

You know, I have

that book, but I haven't read it. It's really weird. I don't even know where it is.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (34:51)
It,

yeah, but it, but it is, it's a great resource. So what I wanted, I pulled from not just from that book, but from a lot of different places, the information I felt was most important for people to understand trauma. So the first part of the book is just, here's the nuts and bolts of what you're dealing with. And even within that, it's like, there's little subheadings for, you know, what, what, what is trauma exactly? What is PTSD?

What are fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses? And describe all of that. What is compassion fatigue? Like I go into all of those things to give just a basic understanding of all of that. So that then leads us into, here's what I have done with my healing process. And I talk about thinking. We were talking about this earlier before we got on here. We were talking about, you know, what do I think and what is my belief system?

And sometimes people, especially if they've experienced a lot of trauma, they literally don't understand or know what they think. They think what other people think. They take on what other people think and what other people believe. They don't know for themselves. What do I really think? What do I really believe? Right? So that's part of it in the book is like really figuring out what is it that you believe.

Wilkinson (35:44)
And sometimes people, especially the negative experience.

Right.

Right.

So on your book, Dearing to Heal, so who's your audience for that?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (36:12)
Well, I like to think it's everybody. It's, I say this in the book, we're walking around on a planet with billions of people who suffer from some form of trauma. Billions. now that can be

Wilkinson (36:15)
Okay. Of course you do. No.

and

more of them being created every day now.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (36:31)
Exactly. And we're all experiencing communal trauma in some ways. So it's very complicated. So, you know, there's different kinds of trauma too. And then if you don't have any trauma experience, you know, somebody who does, you know, in love or work with somebody who does. So understanding what's going on with those people's health. So I really literally mean that the book, everybody can get something out of this book, but I think that

Wilkinson (36:35)
Right, right.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (36:56)
The primary audience is people who have experienced trauma or maybe think that they have and don't understand it and want to understand more about what it is to know if that's what's going on.

Wilkinson (37:04)
Gotcha.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (37:06)
So that's my audience. Life's a lot of people. So technically I should sell millions, billions of copies of this.

Wilkinson (37:07)
That's a lot of stuff.

⁓

Yeah, really. So 5.6 billion books should be sold then. That's my calculation. ⁓ If we do that math there. Hey, so what you up to now? Yeah, besides local theater here, which you're amazing in.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (37:21)
Exactly. And I can be, you know, my own Jeff Bezos or...

What am I up to now?

Yeah,

well, part of this whole thing of my healing process, not only like discovering my true authentic self and recognizing that the theater community in Minneapolis just wasn't going to transform in the way that I needed it to in order to feel safe. I left, I moved from Minneapolis in 2000, or April 23.

And I came to Palm Springs because I have the dearest friends in the world here. Alan Shelley, Doug, and a friend Cam was here. And I came here to do some healing, because I was really still kind of reeling from what happened with the book coming out.

COVID, all of that stuff, the trial, trial happened in 19, sorry, 2019. And I was still really reeling from a lot of that. Like I'd never given myself the opportunity to slow down and just like heal. And so I came here and my friends, Alan, Shelley and Doug, they gave me space to do that. And I kind of fell in love with Palm Springs.

through that process and decided to move here. And our very small but lovely little theater community is now a place where I feel like I'm building a family and a home. ⁓

Wilkinson (38:50)
Well,

I'm not, you know, I spent a couple of years or a season and a half working at one of the theaters, but I think it's pretty big here from what I've seen. I'm on the outside looking in, but yikes. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (38:56)
Yeah.

It's, the amount of talent that's here is pretty amazing. A lot of people have transplanted here in recent

years and it just feels like it's just gurgling and growing. And I'm excited to see what happens with it. I'm excited to be part of it. So that's my main thing.

Wilkinson (39:15)
What? Wait, what,

what, somebody said you should, I should ask you about Arizona. What's going on in Arizona?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (39:22)
what's happening in Arizona?

right now, so last year I directed a play called The Woman in the Mirror and it was written by Dana Steele who is a rock and roll DJ, Hall of Fame DJ from Houston, Texas who wrote this book about her mother dying of Alzheimer's and her experience with that. So this play I have a connection to because my mother also died of Alzheimer's.

Wilkinson (39:28)
Okay.

Okay.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (39:47)
and I was her caregiver. so Dana and I had this similar journey and connection around that. And when I found that material, she was looking for a director, I got on board and it was very, very well received. We've done a rewrite of it and we are taking it on road. So we're going to be in Wachuka, is that how you say it?

Wilkinson (39:47)
Wow.

Take it down the road.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (40:13)
think that's it. It's south of Tucson, Oaxaca, Arizona. And we're doing two weeks in Arizona. And hopefully we'll be taking the show other places too.

Wilkinson (40:20)
Cool.

Besides just it's about Alzheimer's.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (40:27)
Describe more about the show. So the show is a two person show. It's basically Dana and her mom and the story of her mother dying, but it's through the lens of Dana's humor because Dana's a really funny person. So one of the things she wanted to do with the storytelling was give people permission to laugh.

to take care of themselves and to appreciate the absurdity of this disease. And because it is really, and it's so prevalent, there are so many people who suffer from it or people who have, you know, parents or aunts, uncles, siblings, whatever, who experience Alzheimer's. So it's really an important play and message, again, for...

almost everybody, you know, there's just so many people who are affected by Alzheimer's. So the book is, Rodina refers to it as a love letter to caregivers. So it's beautiful play and I hope we get to take it many, many places.

Wilkinson (41:22)
Well, cool.

Are you going to have the revised version here in the valley or no? ⁓

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (41:29)
We're looking at it, yeah. We're hoping to bring

it back here and do it for probably a limited engagement maybe this coming season. So we'll see, fingers crossed.

Wilkinson (41:36)
Cool,

Excellent. So we're going to put your contact info and your bio and all that good stuff on the episode notes below. And if anybody's watching there, please like this comment. I want to hear what you're thinking about it and follow the podcast if you haven't done it, it's free. But so in closing, I always ask my guests, how do you live your life? What do you live by? What's a lesson or a couple lessons? Like what got, what guide you?

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (41:42)
Okay.

Yes, please.

What guides me? My heart. You know, I primarily no longer accept unacceptable. And that was something that I learned to accept at the Children's Theater as a child. It was like, stop listening to your gut, accept the unacceptable things that are happening around you. So I lived my life like that. And now I've learned to trust my gut.

and talk about that in the memoir extensively. And I just no longer, I just don't take the bullshit anymore. So that's.

Wilkinson (42:34)
Yeah. Well, you

know, before, before we started this, talked and this is totally off topic, but there's a podcaster called Aubrey Marcus. And we talked about the situation with him. And I said, you know, these guys, know, they become jillionaires and they're, you know, they have this big following, but we put them on a pedestal and he just, just did this word that you look it up on Google if you want to put Aubrey Marcus controversy, if you want to see it. But, it's really kind of shaken a lot of people up, but.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (43:01)
and

Wilkinson (43:01)
But what you just said triggered something I was thinking. I think that the spiritual community, of which we're both a part of, besides all these other things, the lights are getting turned on, baby. And that's what you're saying, is the light's turned on. I'm not gonna do that. No, no, no, that's not good. Yeah. So cool. I've always admired you. It's wonderful having you here talking. Yeah, yeah.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (43:12)
Yeah,

It's good to get to know you a little bit more too. And you know, you're

a part of this community and I'm excited to hear more of the podcasts and listening to your podcasts. And there's so many to listen to in that short period of time. You sure are productive, mister.

Wilkinson (43:28)
Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah

Well, I need to, you know, I was at the beginning, I tried doing three a week. my God. So then I, then it was two and then one. Now I would, I would really like to get back to two a week, but for right now it's, it's one a week. So, but uh,

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (43:41)
But it's like...

Really?

Well, you and I are

alike in so many ways, but you are an extrovert, I am not. I I come across as an extrovert, most people think I am, but I am, yeah, and people are often surprised to see that, and then I'm like, nope, I got about four hours in me in public, and then I'm like, just bring me home to my dog.

Wilkinson (43:56)
Really?

⁓ I would have said you were.

Well, I

am a New York type A Leo who's really calmed down a lot over the years. So anyway, thanks Laura. It was great having you and we will talk more. Good luck. Good luck in Arizona. Thanks for coming in.

Laura Stearns- Actor & Author (44:18)
Thank you, thanks for having me.

Thank you