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Friday, February 27, 2026
Black Actress Sues Harvard Theater Over Horrific Hair Experience
www.theroot.com: Her story revolves around the 2025 production of “The Odyssey” that was taking place at Harvard University’s American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. While there, Imoru said she was made to get cornrows in her hair as required for her role.
6 comments:
DogBlog
said...
This whole incident is just so disgusting, this woman got chemical burns and has permanent hair loss. She was in an excruciating amount of pain and is absolutely traumatized and for good reasoning. I think this goes to demonstrate how important cultural competency within theater is. I think when we think of not being racist in theater we generally think of the words we say however the actions of companies in my opinion make up an even greater part of being supportive of all people. I think it's kind of insane that ART doesn't have someone qualified to do hair because they are such a huge theater with a giant budget which you don't see from a lot of regional theaters and so like the fact that even they have so much money but they're not willing to spend it on the well-being of their actors is insane. I think it's also something to be said that as students who are going into production, especially stage management, we need to be advocating for our actors because very often they are unable to do so for themselves because they are worried about losing their jobs or being labeled difficult to work with. the whole situation is fucked and I feel so so bad for her and absolutely enraged at ART.
We were talking about this story in AREPT. The fact that such a big theater, that has money, decided to not spend extra money to make sure that a Black woman’s hair was done properly is infuriating. Especially since braids that tight when done incorrectly can be incredibly damaging, as evidenced by what happened to Nike Imoru. The fact that they had experienced hair dressers for the white actors but not for someone whose hair takes a little more skill and experience to work with directly shows that they are not as committed to their values where they say they “center anti-racism”. A place that centers anti-racism would know that if they are going to use a Black person’s natural hair and give them a hairstyle that is supposed to be protective for their hair, that they should hire someone who is licensed and knows what they are doing, someone who would know the correct hair to use.
This is awful to hear about and I am furious for this woman. It is so clearly racism and discrimination coming into play, and its awful that she was not given a proper hairstylist because of that. The fact this will permanently impact her hair is awful to hear and I truly do wish her the best and hope there is a solution. As someone with textured hair, this is horrifying to hear about. For a long time, I had no idea how to take care of my hair, and I’m still learning. I know firsthand how badly it can impact you to not have your hair properly taken care of. Now having better knowledge of how to take care of my hair and sticking to that routine, I would be extremely angry and upset if someone I trusted to take care of my hair, messed it up and caused permanent damage because of lack of skills and knowledge of how to properly handle it. My sympathies go out to this woman, I really hope she wins the case and that those responsible get what is coming to them.
It’s really disheartening to see such a successful theater proclaim they support all actors but then do things like this, I think it shows that just because something is in a theater’s mission statement doesn’t actually mean they make an effort to uphold it in their daily operations. What they did to this woman is absolutely terrible and I can already tell that they will try to shift blame instead of taking any accountability even though this was 100% their fault, not only did they recruit her despite not having a plan for her hair the plan the did come up with was putting her with someone who was ill experienced and should never have been touching her hair to begin with (which is especially wrong since they had professional stylists for all the other actors, it seems unlikely to me that they couldn’t find even one professional stylist that deals in black hair)
As someone who is from Boston and a huge fan of the ART, this makes me incredibly sad. I hate how so many black performers have a common experience of their hair being mistreated. Earlier this year I did a project where I investigated the ART’s values and anti-racist practices, and one thing I focused on was how they approached hair and makeup design. I spoke with a black woman who has worked on multiple shows there before who told me it was the most inclusive theater she has ever worked at, and that they hired professional braiders to do her hair, paid her for the time it took to do it, and asked her for a list of products that she wanted for the upkeep of the style which they then purchased for her. It breaks my heart that they have not continued these practices and that this performer had such a different experience.
6 comments:
This whole incident is just so disgusting, this woman got chemical burns and has permanent hair loss. She was in an excruciating amount of pain and is absolutely traumatized and for good reasoning. I think this goes to demonstrate how important cultural competency within theater is. I think when we think of not being racist in theater we generally think of the words we say however the actions of companies in my opinion make up an even greater part of being supportive of all people. I think it's kind of insane that ART doesn't have someone qualified to do hair because they are such a huge theater with a giant budget which you don't see from a lot of regional theaters and so like the fact that even they have so much money but they're not willing to spend it on the well-being of their actors is insane. I think it's also something to be said that as students who are going into production, especially stage management, we need to be advocating for our actors because very often they are unable to do so for themselves because they are worried about losing their jobs or being labeled difficult to work with. the whole situation is fucked and I feel so so bad for her and absolutely enraged at ART.
We were talking about this story in AREPT. The fact that such a big theater, that has money, decided to not spend extra money to make sure that a Black woman’s hair was done properly is infuriating. Especially since braids that tight when done incorrectly can be incredibly damaging, as evidenced by what happened to Nike Imoru. The fact that they had experienced hair dressers for the white actors but not for someone whose hair takes a little more skill and experience to work with directly shows that they are not as committed to their values where they say they “center anti-racism”. A place that centers anti-racism would know that if they are going to use a Black person’s natural hair and give them a hairstyle that is supposed to be protective for their hair, that they should hire someone who is licensed and knows what they are doing, someone who would know the correct hair to use.
This is awful to hear about and I am furious for this woman. It is so clearly racism and discrimination coming into play, and its awful that she was not given a proper hairstylist because of that. The fact this will permanently impact her hair is awful to hear and I truly do wish her the best and hope there is a solution. As someone with textured hair, this is horrifying to hear about. For a long time, I had no idea how to take care of my hair, and I’m still learning. I know firsthand how badly it can impact you to not have your hair properly taken care of. Now having better knowledge of how to take care of my hair and sticking to that routine, I would be extremely angry and upset if someone I trusted to take care of my hair, messed it up and caused permanent damage because of lack of skills and knowledge of how to properly handle it. My sympathies go out to this woman, I really hope she wins the case and that those responsible get what is coming to them.
It’s really disheartening to see such a successful theater proclaim they support all actors but then do things like this, I think it shows that just because something is in a theater’s mission statement doesn’t actually mean they make an effort to uphold it in their daily operations. What they did to this woman is absolutely terrible and I can already tell that they will try to shift blame instead of taking any accountability even though this was 100% their fault, not only did they recruit her despite not having a plan for her hair the plan the did come up with was putting her with someone who was ill experienced and should never have been touching her hair to begin with (which is especially wrong since they had professional stylists for all the other actors, it seems unlikely to me that they couldn’t find even one professional stylist that deals in black hair)
As someone who is from Boston and a huge fan of the ART, this makes me incredibly sad. I hate how so many black performers have a common experience of their hair being mistreated. Earlier this year I did a project where I investigated the ART’s values and anti-racist practices, and one thing I focused on was how they approached hair and makeup design. I spoke with a black woman who has worked on multiple shows there before who told me it was the most inclusive theater she has ever worked at, and that they hired professional braiders to do her hair, paid her for the time it took to do it, and asked her for a list of products that she wanted for the upkeep of the style which they then purchased for her. It breaks my heart that they have not continued these practices and that this performer had such a different experience.
forgot to put my name, but this is arden
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