A dancer accused of sharing explicit images of another dancer is starring in this season’s splashy new take on West Side Story, leading to upset in the theater community

In the Broadway revival of West Side Story, Amar Ramasar pulls the actor who plays Anita in for a kiss and tosses her around the dance floor. He embodies his character Bernardo – sexy, intense – and his onstage girlfriend drapes over him like an accessory.

At one point in the show, they burrow into each other as big and little spoons. Seconds later, she mounts him near center stage.

'It's like a cult': how sexual misconduct permeates the world of ballet Read more

Ramasar, 38, is starring in the Broadway revival less than two years after he was outed as a player in one of ballet’s most infamous #MeToo moments.

Not everyone’s a fan of his onstage comeback.

“I’m sure there’s someone equally as talented who is deserving of this opportunity who isn’t entangled in a sex scandal, you know?” said Christina Bargelt, a professional ballerina and sexual assault awareness advocate and activist. “Put in the understudy. I’m sure he’s fabulous.”

“Text me those photos/videos!!” Ramasar wrote to his former New York City Ballet colleague Chase Finlay. The latter obliged, sending images of his then girlfriend, Alexandra Waterbury, performing a sexual act, bare-breasted, according to a complaint filed in the state supreme court in Manhattan.

Waterbury, now 22, is a student at Columbia University who trained at City Ballet’s affiliated dance school. She has sworn an affidavit that she never gave Finlay permission to photograph her in the nude or capture her on camera while they were having sex, much less disseminate explicit images of her.

“I was assaulted. Several other women were assaulted. And like, there’s proof of it,” Waterbury told the Guardian.

Ramasar, in turn, shared intimate pictures of a female City Ballet corps member with Finlay, among them an image of the woman’s vagina, the complaint says. Their back-and-forth is part of a larger trove of correspondence that Waterbury unearthed on Finlay’s computer between City Ballet dancers and donors, in which men compared women to “farm animals” and “sluts” and expressed the desire to “violate” and “abuse” them.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Amar Ramasar in 2018. Photograph: Noam Galai/Getty Images for "Carousel"

In one string of texts, Finlay suggested sharing Waterbury with Ramasar. According to photos of the messages provided to the Guardian, Ramasar wrote: “I might need blow in order to try and f*** her!” The West Side Story actor later insinuated that he planned to offer his own partner in exchange because he would owe Finlay.

Beyond the texts, Waterbury has alleged that Ramasar would grope and kiss people at after-parties and gatherings. She had to ask Finlay to tell Ramasar to leave her alone because she didn’t want to be touched.

When the text scandal broke in 2018, Ramasar was a principal dancer with City Ballet and in the midst of his Broadway debut in Carousel. But, after concluding that he had indeed “engaged in inappropriate communications”, City Ballet suspended and then fired him and his fellow dancer Zachary Catazaro, who was also implicated (Finlay resigned).

On 15 September 2018, Ramasar wrote on Instagram: “Unfortunately we live in a time where allegations are taken as fact, and actions are made rashly and harshly.”

A few days later, he captioned another photo: “The messages exchanged between Mr. Finlay and myself were private and sent on personal time outside of work.” He claimed that pictures he possessed of a female City Ballet dancer were of a “consenting adult” and “the photos that were sent to me I have not circulated”.

Ramasar’s exile from the spotlight lasted mere months. By January 2019, he wrote on social media about his “new home”, Teatro Dell’Opera Di Roma in Italy. That February, he returned to New York to perform with the dancer Michele Wiles’ company BalletNext. And in April, he was ordered reinstated at City Ballet by an arbitrator who reportedly required him to undergo counseling but believed his termination the previous year had gone too far (the arbitrator’s decision was not made public).

“As I move forward, learning, and evolving, I am eager to once again dance amongst the colleagues I respect, doing the ballets I have held close to my heart for the past 18 years,” Ramasar said at the time.

By May, he was performing again as a principal dancer with City Ballet. Then, in July, a new adaptation of West Side Story produced by Scott Rudin and directed by the Tony Award winner Ivo van Hove announced Ramasar as Bernardo.

In 10 months, he had gone full circle and ended up exactly where he left off: a favorite at City Ballet with a starring role on Broadway.

Previews for West Side Story started in December, and the show will officially open on 20 February.

“The longer he’s there, the longer he’s getting paid. The longer he’s getting a good reputation. The longer he’s kind of just, like, making all of this disappear,” Waterbury said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Alexandra Waterbury. ‘The longer he’s there, the longer he’s ... getting a good reputation.’ Photograph: Alexandra Waterbury

Rick Miramontez, a spokesman for the production, defended Ramasar’s hiring by pointing to the arbitrator’s call to reinstate him at City Ballet.

“Throughout that legal process, Amar received the full support of Actors Equity Association, and he is currently a member in good standing of the union,” Miramontez wrote in a statement. “We are aligned with Actors Equity in its support of Amar’s employment eligibility and his appearance in our production of West Side Story.”

But a different union appealed Ramasar’s termination from City Ballet, and a spokesperson for Actors’ Equity said it took no position on the arbitration.

In terms of Ramasar’s casting in West Side Story, Brandon Lorenz, communications director for Actors’ Equity, said the union “did not make any hiring suggestions regarding any member of the West Side Story company” and “had no awareness of casting decisions for West Side Story before the cast was publicly announced”.

“Equity did not communicate ‘support’ to the employer about any members of the company as part of the hiring process,” Lorenz wrote in a statement.

Miramontez declined for others involved in the production, including Ramasar, to answer questions for this article.

Alisa Hurwitz, a clinical psychologist who specializes in sexual trauma and writes about theater and psychology, called the choice to cast Ramasar “absolutely, unequivocally irresponsible”.

Hurwitz believes that Ramasar’s fellow dancers are either in active denial about the accusations leveled against him, or they’re being made to feel unsafe because they’re in such a physically intimate situation with him. Artists who know Waterbury and are familiar with her experience reiterated those safety concerns.

“If I knew that someone had been found guilty of misconduct, harassment or assault, I’d feel incredibly uncomfortable with that person being in a place where they could be partnering me, or really anything backstage,” said Jessica Altchiler, a sexual assault survivor who is currently part of a Broadway national tour.

After the sexual assault awareness advocate Bargelt’s former classmates from the University of Utah performed alongside Ramasar with BalletNext last year, she wrote a letter to the school’s dance community and leadership calling him “an exploitative sexual predator” and questioning the decision-making that put her peers “in harm’s way”.

“I just really didn’t appreciate that he was allowed access to my friends, who are the same age as Alex, essentially,” Bargelt said. “That seemed really not cool to me.”

West Side Story features a similarly green cast. Ramasar, a 20-year veteran of New York’s most prominent stages, is the exception. The show has touted how dozens of performers are making their Broadway debuts. Some are still in college. Others graduated recently.

The revival is being heralded as “one of the most eagerly awaited productions of the 2019-2020 season”.

“I hear such great things about 99% of it except for this,” said Altchiler, referencing Ramasar’s role. “And unfortunately this situation – even though it might be pretty insignificant compared to however many positive things there are – it’s everything. It changes everything for people who are informed, for people who have been victims.”

Ahead of the show’s opening night, more than 21,000 signatures on a Change.org petition are calling to “get Amar Ramasar off the stage”. The 19-year-old college student and former dancer Megan Rabin, who created the petition, said she hoped Ramasar would be removed from the cast and his firing would serve as a precedent that people who violate women will be held accountable.

Chris Peterson, founder and editor-in-chief of OnStage Blog, has advocated for theatergoers to boo Ramasar during his bows. “If one person boos, not only will Amar Ramasar hear it, but everyone around you will hear it, and it becomes a palpable, effective, impactful protest,” Peterson told the Guardian.

For her part, Hurwitz, the psychologist, said she would not be attending West Side Story because she did not want her money going to Ramasar and the people who hired him. Bargelt and Waterbury suggested that others follow suit.

“Say nobody shows up to West Side Story. They don’t sell any tickets. And it’s all because of Amar. What do you think they’re gonna do? Fire Amar,” Waterbury said. “The ticket buyers have all of the power, whether they know that or not.”

But the box office has been doing just fine. West Side Story has already broken a house record at the Broadway Theatre, where it is being performed. It has easily grossed more than $1m each week, even when one of its stars was injured and out of the show.

At a Monday night performance in mid-January, a huge audience packed into the orchestra and mezzanine. When Ramasar took his bow, the actor who played Anita bowed alongside him.

And no one booed – at least not loudly enough to hear.