The former director of The Gate Theatre, Michael Colgan has apologised following the claims of several women that he sexually harassed them.
Grace Dyas, just one of the women that Colgan reportedly harassed came forward to try and break the spell of sexual harassment enshrined in theatre.
Grace wrote a post detailing that "After the Dublin Theatre Festival launch last year, the crowd retired to The Oak Bar on Dame St. Where I met Michael. He seemed quite drunk, which was not unusual. Michael was often the ‘drunk uncle at a wedding’ at these theatre gatherings. He had even grabbed my friend’s baby earlier in the night and we’d had to politely retrieve the baby for fear he would drop him.
He offered to buy me a drink and I said yes. He started looking me up and down. He said “Have you lost weight?” I said “Yeah, I lost weight for my wedding. I just got married”. He said “You’ve lost so much weight, I’d almost have sex with you” I was taken aback, but not surprised. I said “Michael! You can’t say that to me!” He replied “What! I didn’t say I would fuck you. You haven’t lost that much weight”."
Since Grace's story, multiple other women testified to have suffered the same behaviour from Colgan.
The former director has broken his silence on the allegations in the Sunday Independent , saying that the spate of allegations had led people to make gross insinuations about his family and that his family had also suffered rumours that were utterly untrue.
Colgan apologised to his victims, saying he was regretful of his actions: "But realising that I have been responsible for causing distress to some of those with whom I worked so closely with has shocked me, I am truly sorry."
