Accused of making unwanted advances, Lee Trull says he’s sorry. Now what?

If there were an island for the disgraced men of #MeToo, Lee Trull would be living on it. Six months ago, he was one of the most influential people in Dallas theater circles. He scouted new talent for the Dallas Theater Center, worked on plays throughout the city and enjoyed thousands of social media connections. Today, he has no job and few friends. He spends a lot of time at home, reading, drawing sketches of his cat and asking Google how to overcome a personal scandal. Trull, 38, was fired late last year amid allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances to women while he was in a position of power. TheaterJones, a local performing arts website, published accounts from several women, and five women recently spoke with The Dallas Morning News. The allegations against Trull include hitting on college students who wanted to work at his theater, sending lewd messages and, in one case, having sex with an actor who says she was too drunk to consent. Now, Trull wants to tell his story in what he says is an effort to publicly take responsibility for his mistakes and move forward with his life. “What I’m sorry about is that I should never have engaged with any of these young women in anything but a professional way,” he told The News. “There was a sense of fear that I was not aware of and that I’m deeply regretful of. In a way, not being aware is an abuse of power.” Abbey Siegworth (left) and Lee Trull acted in a play together in 2010. They rehearsed an argument between their characters during a rehearsal of Reason to Be Pretty at Studio Theater. (File Photo/Staff) This is not a comeback story. It’s a case study of a man who wants to know what it means to rehabilitate in the era of #MeToo. Beyond losing their power, what are the appropriate ramifications for men like him? Should they be able to make a living? Have friends? Go out to the bar and the grocery store? Be quoted in a news article? Should they even dare to ask such questions? Trull’s case is noteworthy precisely because his behavior is not uncommon. Many men create gray areas in their sexual pursuits — pushing boundaries far enough to get what they want, but not so far that women feel justified to complain. And while Trull abused his power, he’s not well-known outside of his industry and he’s not rich enough to simply disappear. How we deal with men like him will tell us far more about #MeToo than how we handle Harvey Weinstein. If the first wave of #MeToo stories were powerful in their simplicity, this story is going to be the opposite: Messy. Complicated. Hurtful for a lot of people and vindicating for few. “It’s offensive to me that the accused feels they have any room to still say, ‘OK, yeah, I did a lot of really bad stuff, but don’t be mad at me, I’m still human,’” said Abbey Siegworth, an actor who said she had distressing encounters with Trull. Neither she nor Trull would discuss them on the record. Siegworth said that it’s too soon for Trull to turn the attention to himself, that he hasn’t yet earned that right. About this story Lee Trull was fired by Dallas Theater Center in December, amid allegations that he made unwanted advances to women. He reached out to The Dallas Morning News in March, asking to share his perspective. We agreed to listen. We also did extensive reporting. This story is based on interviews with two dozen people, including five women who had interactions with him. “It’s not about you,” she said. In a series of interviews, Trull said he is to blame for misusing his power and making women uncomfortable. “I’m 100 percent sorry,” he said. He also talked about how his life has been destroyed by the TheaterJones post, which he believes was biased and incomplete: “What happened to me was a public shaming.” And while he has gone to therapy, gotten on medication, listened to podcasts and read articles to try to understand what he did, and begged for forgiveness from his longtime girlfriend, his mother and his sisters, he hasn’t apologized to the women who spoke out against him. Instead, he reached out to the newspaper. “This is a big thing that happened to me,” Trull said. “I imagine there will be more people like me just floating around society, like, what do we do with these guys? And I think we need to have a conversation about that in a nuanced way and that requires me to say some bad stuff about myself.” And, he said, he needs to get a job.


From theater geek to drama king Trull looks like a theater guy: Slim, big tortoiseshell glasses, not afraid to wear the occasional salmon-colored shirt. He’s also charming, a good conversationalist and quick to make a joke at his own expense. He’s always felt a special connection with women. He has three sisters and mostly female friends. But from an early age, he said, he also learned to see women in a sexual way. “There’s a level of ‘she’s hot, I bet she’s good in bed’ that I’ve been doing since I was first in a gym class,” Trull said. He grew up in Arlington, where he was a “C” student and no good at sports. Trull remembers acting in the play Robin Hood when he was in ninth grade. For the first time, he felt like he was good at something. “He was kind of a nerdy guy who was really into theater and never really caught the girl,” said Dana Schultes, who went to the same high school as Trull and is now executive producer at Stage West Theatre in Fort Worth. Andy Jacobsohn/Staff Photographer “He made up for that by being overly confident, by being bigger than life,” said Schultes, who fired Trull from a Stage West play after the allegations broke. “I imagine there will be more people like me just floating around society, like, what do we do with these guys?” Lee Trull After college, Trull moved to Dallas to try to make it in theater. By 2006, a profile in The News deemed him “on fire” as an actor and playwright. Two years later, Dallas Theater Center hired him. He was 28. To understand the significance of this — and the rest of the story — you have to understand something about theater here. Dallas Theater Center, which won a regional Tony Award last year, has always been the place to work in town. It’s prestigious and, unlike a lot of local theaters, it pays a living wage. Trull acted as a gatekeeper there, casting actors in plays and later developing new shows. He also wrote his own plays and directed at other top theater companies in the area. He was everywhere an aspiring artist might want to work. Trull’s success drew accolades — and animosity, particularly in a tight-knit community prone to drama. His ego didn’t help. One assistant director said Trull was the kind of boss who actually asked her to get him coffee. He also strategically undermined actors in rehearsal, some who worked with him said. Once, an actor who had nursed a grudge against Trull over an obnoxious comment finally punched him in the face at a cast party. But others knew Trull as a mentor and friend, someone smart who went out of his way to help up-and-coming theater artists. He was a good listener, a shoulder to cry on during a break up. He exuded passion and talent, and had a way of making others feel like they did, too. “He was always someone who I looked to for advice,” said Martha Harms, an actor who has remained friends with Trull. “I always felt like Lee had my interests in his heart.” But there was a trend in the artists he paid attention to: Many were young women.

Katy Tye, a 2015 graduate of Southern Methodist University, said that Trull sent her sexual and flirtatious messages while she was in college and he was working at Dallas Theater Center. The theater has a long-standing partnership with SMU. (Andy Jacobsohn/Staff Photographer)

‘It was a misuse of power’ In 2009, early in Trull’s tenure at Dallas Theater Center, an actor and singer named Claire Moore came in for an audition. She was in her 20s and new to town. After her audition, Trull, who was then about 30, reached out on Facebook and asked to meet for drinks, she said. Trull remembers it differently. He said they met through a mutual friend, not through his work. The two got together. Moore said she assumed it would be a casting meeting, but it felt like a date. It was a hot summer night. They drank wine and talked about theater. They ended up at his place, where Moore said they had consensual sex. Afterward, she said, she discovered Trull had a serious girlfriend. (Trull and his girlfriend of 10 years are still together. Trull would not comment on their relationship; his girlfriend declined to be interviewed for this article.) “Who wants to sit in a room with someone who has seen you at your most vulnerable and takes complete advantage of you?” Claire Moore Moore and Trull exchanged messages sporadically after that, she said. She asked for career advice. He once commented, she recalled, on how her breasts looked in a beach photo. She said she didn’t shut down the conversation because she still hoped to work at his theater. In the winter of 2010-11, Moore said she met up with Trull again, this time for drinks at a bar on Lower Greenville. Her father had recently died, she said, and she was deep in her grief. Moore got drunk. Trull seemed sober, she said. He accompanied her home, where she said she passed out on her bed. The next thing she remembers is coming out of her blackout while she and Trull were having sex. “You’re taught that rape is when someone holds you down with a knife,” said Moore, who is 33 and lives in New York City. She believes she was too drunk to consent. Moore’s former roommate told The News that she saw Moore and Trull come home. Moore was intoxicated and unable to walk on her own. The next morning, the roommate said, Moore told her something bad happened. Moore said she stopped trying out for parts in Dallas after that: “Who wants to sit in a room with someone who has seen you at your most vulnerable and takes complete advantage of you?” Trull said: “I can't respond directly to this accusation without hurling more accusations and I'm not willing to do that. The conversation surrounding all of this is confusing and complicated. What is not confusing or complicated is that I have changes I need to make in my life. That is what I'm focused on.” Miranda Parham (left) and Lee Trull on the opening night of Barbecue Apocalypse, a 2014 play at Kitchen Dog Theater in which Parham acted and Trull directed. (Courtesy of Miranda Parham) In 2012, another young woman got a Facebook message from Trull. Miranda Parham, a junior at Southern Methodist University, which has a long-standing partnership with Dallas Theater Center, said Trull asked her to serve as his assistant director on a play. Soon, she said, he had also gotten her a summer gig at Dallas Theater Center. That summer, they hung out often: Coffee, lunch, drinks. One day, while saying goodbye in the parking garage of a restaurant, he kissed her, she said. Later, she said she told him she wasn’t interested in him romantically. “No problem,” she recalled Trull saying. “I’ll back off.” They stayed in touch. After she graduated college, he cast her in a play he was directing. They called each other “bestie,” according to copies of text messages Parham shared. But occasionally — when Parham was single, or they were alone together — she said he tried for a kiss, sometimes much more. “It was confusing. I did consider him a friend. I really thought he believed in me as a young theater person,” said Parham, now 27 and an actor in Los Angeles. “In hindsight,” she said, “he was very manipulative.” Trull said he thought of Parham as a close friend. “That she now looks back on our friendship with anger and confusion illustrates to me the mess I've made of things,” he said. In 2013, Trull Facebook messaged another young woman he knew casually from the theater community. Katy Tye, also a student at SMU, had posted an athletic photo of herself doing a poolside handstand while on spring break. “Too many Miami photos for an old guy trying to work!” Trull wrote. The two began messaging back and forth, about everything from theater to TV shows to sex. Tye provided copies of some of the messages and Trull confirmed their accuracy. At one point, Trull extolled the benefits of sleeping with older men. “Older guys are more patient,” he wrote. “More into pleasing than being pleased. Slower. Deeper.” While young boys fumble around, he said, “older guys are more graceful.” “Fair enough,” Tye wrote back. “I can see that. In some cases.” Tye said she may have brushed off Trull as a creepy dude — if he hadn’t been in charge of casting at a major theater. “It was a misuse of power,” she said.


A building pressure By the fall of 2016, Katy Lemieux, a local freelance writer, had begun looking into the rumblings about Trull. Word got back to Dallas Theater Center, which did an internal investigation, Trull said. It wasn’t the first time his employer had talked with him. The theater confirmed it investigated and resolved a 2010 complaint; Trull said he had been spoken to for making a female coworker uncomfortable. This time, the investigation found only rumors. Trull said the theater ordered him to attend training on appropriate workplace behavior, which he said he did. He said his bosses also read some rumors aloud, to put him on notice. Things like: Young women trade Lee Trull stories like war stories. Trull scoffed at first. But as the national conversation shifted — Donald Trump was heard bragging about women, saying he could “grab ’em by the pussy” — Trull began to wonder, “Am I part of the problem?” He said he sought counseling a few months later, in the spring of 2017. By that fall, Trull said he was suffering from severe anxiety. He saw a psychiatrist, according to medical records he provided. He wouldn’t discuss his diagnosis or specify the medication he is taking. There’s some evidence that Trull tried to change his behavior during the months before the women went public. Friends said he talked about what he was learning in therapy. Lauren Smart, an arts writer who teaches at SMU and has been a contributor to The News, said he apologized to her for crossing boundaries during their friendship. By early December, the #MeToo movement was roaring. Lemieux, the freelance writer, had partnered with writers at the website TheaterJones. As they got ready to publish several women’s allegations, Dallas Theater Center said it received a complaint about Trull. The theater fired him Dec. 4. “Dallas Theater Center has a clear track record of proactively investigating all allegations of misconduct in the workplace and taking disciplinary action when there is a clear violation of our standards,” a spokeswoman said. On Dec. 5, the TheaterJones post went up online, quoting several women — some anonymous, some by name. The News also published allegations from some women who agreed to speak on the record. Trull was promptly fired from every other project he was working on. The arts community came alive with grief — and with glee. Finally, some people thought, this guy got what he deserved. Trull had an appointment to get a cavity filled that day. He lay in the dentist’s chair, drill whirring, mind racing. An audiobook about a serial killer played in his ear. He felt like he was in hell. Exiled If this were a play, this is the part where the curtain would close and the stage would go dark. When the allegations broke, Trull did not do interviews or issue a statement. He deleted his social media accounts. For weeks, he hid out in his apartment. When he reached out to The News in March, asking to tell his story, Trull said he felt compelled to re-enter society as publicly as he left it. The prospect of another story set off alarm within the theater community. As rumor had it, Trull had hired a PR firm to repair his image. (He said he isn’t paying anyone but has consulted informally with friends in the business.) Many people also feared he was trying to return to theater. (Trull said: “I have no interest in making a theater comeback in this town.”) Here’s what is true: Trull was making less than $60,000 a year at Dallas Theater Center and did not get severance, according to the termination letter he showed us. He is looking for work, doing some freelance writing or selling art he makes online. He wants to be able to discuss his situation with potential employers, which means putting his perspective on the internet. He also has a lot to say. Reading the women’s accounts on TheaterJones was like turning on a harsh, unflattering fluorescent light. He remembers those flirty messages and nights out at bars. What he viewed as fun, even a little thrilling, the women described as creepy and abusive. Trull said he had approached the encounters from a position of vanity and insecurity. “Someone comes to meet me for a drink. I’m thinking, how cool am I?” Kayla Carlyle plays Bonnie Parker during a 2014 dress rehearsal of Bonnie & Clyde at WaterTower Theatre in Addison. (File Photo) But he said he now sees how his behavior was inappropriate. The women probably thought, “What am I to him? Am I smart person, a talented person? Or am I a cute young person?” he said. “In my mind, I thought they could be both.” The takeaway, he said, is something Frances McDormand said in her speech at the Oscars this year: Don’t talk to female colleagues at the party, talk to us at the office. At the same time, Trull said, he’s also angry about how he has been portrayed in the media. Lemieux, the freelancer, and Mark Lowry, the editor of TheaterJones, said they stand by their reporting. “I certainly believed every physical encounter I’ve had with a woman had been consensual,” Trull said. He denied that he has ever offered anyone work in exchange for sex. It’s assumed, he said, that if he’s guilty of one thing, he’s guilty of it all. Some people have called him a sexual predator, which he said isn’t fair. “I do feel like it’s overblown and contagious,” he said. “But I created that, so I’m dealing with it.” Over the past few months, Trull said, he has been working to better himself in therapy. He’s dialed back on social media, which he identified as an addiction. He’s spending more time with his girlfriend and his family. He said he’s thought about volunteering at a charity. But he hasn’t chosen one yet. “Most people who were put in difficult situations, they kind of did what I did,” she said. “You just kind of laugh. You don’t verbally say, ‘Do not touch me.’” Kayla Carlyle He’s also thought about apologizing to the women. But his own fears — and lingering resentment — have stopped him. Some of the women said they want an apology; others said it wouldn’t help them. Nicole Smith, who researches ethics and moral psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, said #MeToo should focus on cultural change, rather than on reforming serial offenders.


“If they genuinely saw the harm they were doing, they wouldn’t have engaged in that behavior in the first place,” she said. “The apologies inevitably come across as ingenuine or insincere and can be counterproductive.” Kayla Carlyle, a former Dallas actor whom Trull tried to kiss, said that the culture shift must include teaching women how to stop appeasing and start saying “no.” “Most people who were put in difficult situations, they kind of did what I did,” she said. “You just kind of laugh. You don’t verbally say, ‘Do not touch me.’”