At a routine evening rehearsal last fall for “POTUS,” a student-led Emerson Stage production, recent graduate and on-set observational director Emma Ahlin watched as the stage management team tested a prop.

Kate Cherry, the artistic director of Emerson Stage and the production—which follows the dynamics of several women as they support a beleaguered U.S. president—was not pleased with the placeholder and demanded it be removed, Ahlin said. Even after it was moved, Cherry allegedly began to yell at the management team in front of the entire cast, all of stage management, and the scenic and costume designers (approximately 30 people), claiming the prop “shouldn’t have been in her sight,” according to Ahlin and stage manager Alex Lewis.

The prop incident was one of several in which Cherry allegedly verbally and emotionally abused students, according to Ahlin, Lewis, and two other students who spoke to The Beacon on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. The four students also made claims of favoritism and said that Cherry had threatened to blacklist those who spoke against her.

“It was awful in terms of the environment, especially when [Cherry] would yell,” Ahlin, whose job on set was to attend rehearsals to observe and offer occasional feedback, said. “She said ‘If you turn me in or talk bad about me, you’re never going to go anywhere in this industry.’”

During the fall semester, an estimated fifty students co-signed a letter addressed to the dean of the school of the arts, Kate Eichhorn, regarding Cherry’s on-set conduct, which has since resulted in discussions between the dean and the students about the allegations. Eichhorn did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Despite multiple attempts by The Beacon, Cherry has not formally responded to the allegations. In an email correspondence with The Beacon, she stated that “students took their complaints through several processes and the case around those complaints was closed after the process was followed,” referring to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Academic Affairs, the college’s complaint offices.

College spokesperson Michelle Gaseau declined to comment on specific “personnel matters” in an email response to a Beacon inquiry. 

“The college cares deeply about promoting and maintaining a dynamic and fulfilling learning environment for our students,” she wrote in the statement. “When the college receives a report of concerns related to the conduct of a member of our staff or faculty, those reports are immediately reviewed and addressed through our Office of Equal Opportunity and other administrative offices as appropriate.”

Lewis brought these claims up with their advisor in late September—a month into work on the production—but their advisor told them to let it go.

“I was told that it would be detrimental to my academic career to bring it up in any way,” said Lewis.

When Lewis later brought an official complaint to OEO, the office said it was unable to act, as it claimed that any actions taken by Cherry were not specifically targeting an aspect of Lewis’s identity that was protected. The complaint was then passed to Academic Affairs, where it was investigated and closed. Neither office returned The Beacon’s multiple requests for comment.

“[The] administration failed the moment that I said the word ‘abuse’ and she was not immediately removed from the premises,” said Lewis. “They want to get all the facts, [but] the facts are that our students are being hurt.”

During the production, Cherry was allegedly aggressive to the tech staff and would frequently scream at them during rehearsals, according to students who worked with her and observed her behavior. 

All four of the students who spoke to The Beacon said that Lewis received the most abuse from Cherry. 

“It [was] a horribly unforgiving environment to be in,” said Lewis. “At one point I realized that the way [Cherry] was making me feel about myself and about my situation was the same way that I felt when I was in an abusive relationship … I was walking into an educational space every single day that was giving me the same panic response.”

All four of the students claimed the dynamics on set were made worse by Cherry creating tension between students. Ahlin recalled a moment when Cherry allegedly instructed the acting company and directing team to be “passive-aggressive” towards the stage management team during a rehearsal until they “figured out what they were doing wrong.”

The students also claimed Cherry favored certain students over others and would allegedly invite only certain members of the acting company to dine at her house or offer them rides home from set.

“I could have come up with a decent list of who was going to be in the ‘POTUS’ cast just based off of her reactions to people in the casting room,” said Lewis. “There are students who she will greet from her chair, and there are students who she will get up and hug and ask how they are, and ask how their families are.”

According to the students, the actors were especially favored in comparison to the stage management team. Each one said they felt as though the actors were given room to learn while the same grace was not extended to stage management.

“[The actors] were her peers and her collaborators, and we were the grunt worker[s],” said Lewis.

Lewis also claimed the recent changes to the Emerson Stage faculty were the reason for Cherry’s behavior going unchecked—specifically pointing to the departure of the former Emerson Stage general manager who left in September, as well as a former artistic director and a former assistant general manager. Her removal of independent casting and postmortems, the meeting after every production to go over what could have been improved, led to a culture of compliance and obedience, they said.

Cherry came to Emerson in the fall of 2023 in a nonrenewable faculty capacity as an “artist-in-residence,” and her contract was extended for the 2024–25 academic year when she became the artistic director of Emerson Stage. Her contract after the spring has not been renewed, several sources have confirmed.

“The processes that we have seen and we have worked on and we have experienced are being ignored in favor of what Brenda [Foley, the performing arts chair] and [Cherry] believe is best based on relatively no information,” said Lewis. Foley also did not respond to The Beacon’s requests for comment.

Lewis also wrote to Eichhorn after their case had been moved to Academic Affairs, claiming that Eichhorn also did not make moves to assist in the situation. 

Ahlin, a transfer student new to Emerson last fall, and Lewis, a three-year veteran with the program, both described disappointing experiences on the set of “POTUS.” 

“The dynamics under Cherry have been especially disheartening,” Lewis said. To them, Emerson Stage was once “extremely effective at making sure their students are safe.”

Ahlin said it was frustrating for her to see  “how someone could treat students who are paying to be here [that way], how their education was thrown away because [she] didn’t think that they deserved one.” 

For Lewis, the fact that other students have had similar complaints has been validating.

“Until it became clear that this behavior was not only impacting me … I was being written off as a casualty,” said Lewis. “I would say they preferred to sweep it under the rug because it was only one person at the time.”