Ex-Second City Actor Claims Castmate Called Him 'Cracker' In Discrimination Lawsuit

CHICAGO, IL — A former Second City actor and writer is accusing a castmate of "a campaign of racial harassment" and assaulting him as part of a discrimination lawsuit against the comedy group, according to court documents. In the lawsuit filed Monday, Scott Morehead, who's white, claims Second City suspended him from the cast of the production “A Red Line Runs Through It” as retaliation for making formal complaints that fellow cast member Aeaia Bullock, who's African American, called him racial slurs during his time on the run. Morehead is asking for unspecified amount of back pay, lost benefits, front pay and compensatory and punitive damages.

According to the lawsuit, Morehead signed on to write and perform in "A Red Line Runs Through It" for Second City e.t.c. in 2016. The production, which was scheduled to run from April 2016 to January 2017, had a cast that consisted mostly of minority performers, the lawsuit stated.

During his time on the show, Morehead claims "[h]e faced a series of racial slurs" from Bullock, who called him "White Jesus" and "cracker," according to the lawsuit. She allegedly called the production a "white-ass show" and told him backstage that when she held up an “I hate honkies” sign during a performance that “what the audience doesn’t know is that I meant I hate white people,” the lawsuit stated. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for Chicago — or your neighborhood. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

Morehead also accuses Bullock in the suit of threatening to "slap the shit" out of him and allegedly admitting she wished "that all white people were dead." Things became physical when she allegedly threw her shoulder into the actor's chest during a peformance, the lawsuit stated.

In May of 2016, Morehead brought up these incidents in a formal complaint to the show's producer, Alison Riliey, who said she would handle things. But Morehead claims that didn't happen, and he made several more complaints with the same results, according to the lawsuit.

Then in September of 2016, Morehead alleges Bullock assaulted him, and he made a complaint to stage manager Laura Hamm, the lawsuit stated. Following that complaint, Morehead says he was indefinitely suspended from the show and replaced with another actor. Second City officials did not give a reason for the suspension, and Morehead, whose bio is still on the group's website, was not offered a new contract, something he was told would happen before he made his complaints.

In a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times, Second City owner and CEO Andrew Alexander would not comment about the lawsuit, but he said that the organization "works diligently to ensure a safe and collaborative work environment for all our employees." Bullock, who left the production early, also would not comment on the lawsuit, the report added.

Morehead's lawsuit gives an example of the turmoil connected with Second City's "A Red Line Runs Through It" production. Along with Morehead and Bullock, two other cast members — Lisa Beasley and Peter Kim — left the show in October, citing backstage unrest and volatile, often racist, reactions from audiences during the run, the Chicago Tribune reported at the time.

"Since September 2015, people in the audience have hurled increasingly racist, homophobic, and misogynistic comments at me and my castmates: comments demeaning my Asian ethnicity, using the f-word to degrade my homosexuality, and shouting 'whores' at the women," Kim wrote in an October 2016 article for Chicago magazine about his experience at Second City. The piece was headlined, "Why I Left My Dream Job At Second City."

"News came out of me leaving Second City earlier this month, and everyone had a comment," he wrote. "I was immediately attacked by Twitter trolls. Complete strangers went out of their way to digitally abuse me for standing up to real-life abuse. If there is a God, she must be one sick, twisted bitch."

WATCH: Former Second City writer and actor Scott Morehead talks about discovering improv:

Scott Morehead (Image from video via Improv Nerd Podcast | YouTube)

Like What You're Reading? Stay Patched In!

• Like our Crime page on Facebook
• Check out the Events Calendar for what’s going on