Miranda

Once we had started to develop a relationship, he was very clear to mention that they were not actually married.

They were common law married, according to him.

He didn't wear a wedding ring or anything, but he referred to her as his wife, too.

Most people, except to me, eventually he would start referring to her as her name and not my wife.

I was 18 and I think he at the time was probably 45 or 46.

I've never been in an environment where people adored a person more than the general population of students adored this person.

Everyone wanted his attention all of the time and everyone thought that he was just the coolest.

Even though he was much older than us, of course, like all of the girls kind of fawned over him.

Even the faculty at the school loved him.

He also came across as incredibly progressive and feminist.

The majority of people that went to this school are also from Oklahoma and grew up pretty conservatively.

And most of the time, conservatives are not studying theater.

So you go to this college and meet this professor who had just lived in Oregon and was super feminist and upset at the state of

feminism in the world and made a priority to cast shows that were predominantly women and tried to be very vocal about how he was also trying to cast women of color.

Everyone thought that that was awesome, but everyone also knew that he was a total asshole.

Particularly to the men and boys in the department, he would make fun of them in front of everyone and would call them names.

If you were a part of his inner circle, which I started out a part of this inner circle of people that he deemed favorites, then he would say the most awful stuff about everyone else in the department.

Like he would call people names.

stupid and terrible actors and would make fun of their performances to you in private and everyone kind of knew that he did that as well but even when he was making fun of you you were like there's something so special about this person when you had his attention in a good way he was really good at making you feel like you were the only thing that mattered

You didn't need to audition to get into the program.