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MIAMI - Miami ballerina Alice Alyse claims her troubles began in 2004 when a fellow dancer with sweaty hands dropped her during a Los Angeles performance of Billy Joel's Broadway hit show, ``Movin' Out.''
The tumble injured Alyse's big right toe, and when she took four months to recover, her breasts suddenly grew a full cup size, something she attributes to a natural "period of maturation and change."
This week, Alyse, 29, filed suit, claiming a couple of show managers ridiculed and harassed her, largely because they had to find a new set of costumes to fit her. When she complained to upper management, they retaliated by denying her a promised lead role and repeatedly sexually harassed her before firing her, according to the lawsuit.
The 42-page lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Monday, seeks $100 million from the show's Florida-based owners and the New York production company for her suffering and loss of work.
The Tony Award winning show, based on Joel's music, made its run through South Florida in January with productions in each of the three counties.
The show's spokesman, Michael Hartman, declined to comment when reached on Tuesday at his office in New York.
The lawsuit, which chronicles Alyse's foray into the dancing world and details a number of embarrassing backstage encounters with the show's managers, reads like a made-for television movie. It names award-winning chorographer Twyla Tharp but does not name Billy Joel.
At the heart of the suit is an apparent feud between the background dancer and the show's stage manager, Eric Sprosty. Alyse claims Sprosty repeatedly berated her in front of her colleagues after she returned in February 2005 from her injury with a more ample bust.
"Your boobs are (expletive) huge. We have to change all of your costumes," were Sprosty's alleged remarks. "We hired you at a C and now you are a (expletive) D. You have to lose them now!"
She claims Sprosty continued to harass her and male dancers grabbed at her. When she complained, things only got worse, the lawsuit claims.
"In effect, she was made to feel freakish and an outcast," wrote her Miami-based attorney, Larry Klayman.
Alyse said she re-injured her toe almost two months after her initial return to the stage when a male dancer wearing combat boots accidentally kicked her during a performance in Iowa. The show's managers argued Alyse was faking her injury and set a March 14 deadline to return.
But she claims the company conspired in amassing months worth of red tape with its insurance firm and prevented her from getting needed toe surgery on time. After her surgery in December, she asked her managers for more recovery time, but instead, the company fired her on Feb. 17 from her $130,000-a-year gig.
Alyse is not the only dancer who has filed suit against her production company for alleged discrimination and harassment. Russian ballerina Anastasia Volochkova sued Moscow's Bolshoi Theater in 2003 after she was fired for being too hefty for her dance partner to lift. A court later ordered the company to rehire her.
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(c) 2006 South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
