Just one day at school for a student at Baltimore School for the Arts (BSA) involves spending eight hours catching nine classes—four for arts, five for academics—which all take place across the eight floors of the building. This makes the school, by default, a challenge.
At BSA, theatre and dance majors not only have to rush during 4-minute passing periods to catch their classes, but are also required to wear uniforms for their arts: leotards for dancers, all-black clothes for actors.
A majority of these students change in and out of their department-required clothing between their academic and arts classes, as their arts clothes often get sweaty and dirty after four hours of movement.
Students of these departments, however, have a very distinct problem: changing in the student bathrooms—which are shared with the rest of the school—during passing periods.
Actors
Over the past four years, BSA’s theatre department has resurfaced the class requirement to wear all-black ‘studio clothes’ in their acting classes. The rule is meant to create a professional and neutral environment for character-building purposes.
As a result, most acting majors bring two sets of clothes: an all-black movement set that most often gets dirty from acting exercises, and a casual, clean set for their academic classes.
Students previously changed in two closet-sized gender-specific rooms next to the actors’ studios, but these were closed off several years ago—before COVID—due to construction reasons and have since been used for storage.
Now, actors are required to change in BSA’s student bathrooms, spread throughout the school during their allotted nine-minute changing period.
Tardiness in the Theatre Department is associated with “unpreparedness,” therefore causing a direct decrease in students’ grades. This short amount of time and sharing of small spaces often leads to students changing out in the open, in front of students of all grades and departments.
This has raised concerns of privacy and convenience among actors of all grades.
One of these students is senior actor and BSA Student Government Association Vice President Ellie Schmid-James.
“The first floor bathroom is my go-to and it only has two stalls, and one of them is always broken so I end up usually having to change in the main space in front of people coming and going. I’m comfortable enough to do that but I think it’s terrible that we’re forced into the position,” Schmid-James said.
“A lot of my classes have been on the fourth or fifth floor so I’m running down all those flights of stairs, and I have to wait for the bathroom because there’s two grades changing at the same time, so it usually takes at least 10 minutes, but we get, like, five. We used to have changing rooms, but now they’re prop rooms. Why don’t we bring that back?” Schmid-James continued.
Schmid-James is not the only student that questioned the current provided spaces.
“I wish those damn changing rooms were still open, but I get the social climate doesn’t allow that,” stated junior actor Leo Pevsner.
This also affects students with non-conforming identities. One of said students is Calvin Holt, a junior actor and a transgender student who was assigned female at birth and transitioned to identify as male.
“When I do change in the bathrooms I always feel uncomfortable. Because I’m transgender, using the women’s bathroom makes me feel weird, but I would rather not do it in the men’s because it feels even less safe to take my clothes off,” Holt stated.
Some students, however, choose the less-taken path—not changing between classes. This includes sophomore actors Lane Morgan and Teagle Walker, who find themselves unaffected by the provided spaces.
“It’s so much effort to walk up the stairs and then wait in the bathroom and then fit in the bathroom, with the locks that are broken, and then get dressed. I like chilling in my sweatpants and sweatshirt,” Morgan stated.
“I just slip on a hoodie over whatever I have on and call it quits. It’s simple,” Walker agreed. “If there was a changing room it wouldn’t change much for me.”
Some freshmen and sophomore actors have academic classes on higher floors directly after their arts classes on the first floor, making the transition all the more difficult and thus putting them in an unfavorable position with their academic teachers.
Take, for instance, sophomore actor Josefina Olsavsky, who has an academic class on the fourth floor directly after her acting classes on the first floor.
“I normally try to leave class as soon as possible, and since it’s four floors I wait for the elevator. Unfortunately, that makes me late for class quite often because I have to get into the bathroom and sometimes the stalls are all full, so then I have to wait,” Olsavsky explained. “When being late happens a lot, sometimes [academic teachers] start to get a little irritated by it. I can’t really control it.”
Some students have specific issues with the bathrooms themselves.
“My stuff and clothes are on the dirty bathroom floor,” said sophomore acting major Ava-Noelle Wright. “I’m fine with changing in front of my ensemble because I kind of signed up for that, but nobody else.”
This does not only impact the students required to change, but also other students that are encouraged to use the bathrooms during passing periods so as to not miss anything in their rapid, packed daily classes.
“It just sucks. I’ve been here for four years and it hasn’t stopped. I feel bad because no one enjoys it. People who have to come in here and use the bathroom don’t enjoy it, and I know the actors don’t enjoy it—who have to be naked in front of people,” says senior film major George Restauro. “It just messes up the whole flow of the bathroom, too. People who need to change are all here and it’s super crowded and no one can pee, and no one can change in peace.”
The head of BSA’s Theatre Department, Becky Mossing (’88), said, “Using bathrooms—there is more privacy, should you need that privacy. Student safety is the reason that we’re using bathrooms and not a changing room.”
“In my day we just changed in front of one another because it wasn’t a big deal, but it was a big deal. I think a lot of this is about boundaries, right? The rooms that are right outside of 116 across from the Sylvan, those two spaces were our changing rooms. They’re very small. You can imagine 8 young men of any given size and 8-10 young women being in those spaces and trying to change their clothes and bumping into one another,” Mossing continued.
“We can’t have students in those dressing rooms where the door is closed and adults can’t go in. It’s just not safe. I think it’s something that we should certainly continue to dialogue about and see if there is another option—I’m not sure that there is. I don’t think it’s out of the question to reexamine it. All things should be reexamined,” Mossing concluded.
Dancers
The dance majors of BSA have a similar situation to the actors—changing in and out of leotards and regular clothes between their arts and academic classes.
One notable difference, however, is that leotards are not considered daily wear and would likely be construed as irregular, making dancers feel all the more inclined to change clothes.
This may be a cause of the resulting 15 minutes allotted to dancers for changing periods, compared to the nine minutes provided to actors, which is also a root for controversy.
Much like the actors, however, the dancers have their complaints about changing in these shared spaces.
“After our dance period ends at 11:05, we all go to the dance bathrooms on the second floor of the Brownstone, and there are only three stalls,” said sophomore dancer Orla Shiller.
“You kind of just have to wait for everyone to change but there’s a lot of traffic because there’s limited space; everyone’s trying to change and get to 5th period on time,” Shiller said.
“Last year I had English 5th period and I got marked tardy a lot. There wasn’t a lot of understanding but it would’ve been uncomfortable to stay in sweaty clothes—it’s a little gross. I do respect that they’ve given us a lot more time; we have from 11:05-11:19,” Shiller continued.
Some students have even decided to merge the gendered bathrooms together just to make changing more efficient.
“Everybody’s waiting, it’s really hot in there, it sucks. The only issue that there has ever been was that girls would change in the boys’ bathroom—but [Dance Department head] Mrs. Iris had an issue with that, though none of the students did. It was kind of just like, ‘Okay, the boys bathroom has three people in there, the girls bathroom has, like, 20,’ so the boys were like, ‘Okay, some of you guys can come in here, it’s fine, we don’t care,’” explained junior dancer Jenna Bates.
Iris Andersen Grizzell (’96), the head of the Dance Department at BSA, explained this rule: “[Women changing in the mens bathroom] is not acceptable because it’s not supposed to be a shared space. I get it, but it takes away the privacy from the male-identifying dancers that are trying to use it. There isn’t as much privacy in the men’s bathroom right now because there are some repairs that haven’t been made. It’s not something that I encourage, which is why I’m trying to open up an additional space.”
Some students, however, find dancers’ tardiness to be more in the fault of the dancers themselves.
“I’m never late to class because I bolt out and rush to the music bathroom, so I’m the only person out there. Most of the Dance Department just stands and talks to each other and that’s why they’re late,” commented sophomore dancer Esmae Stillman.
Like a majority of students at BSA, many of the dancers hold importance in their academics and disagree with the concept of artistic integrity reaching a point of unrealistic standards, negatively impacting their academic experiences.
“We have to travel across the building to find an efficient changing space, especially when dancers have to do their hair. If we’re a couple minutes late to class our teachers get frustrated because they think we don’t care, when it’s really not our fault,” said senior dancer London Connolly.
“When I was a freshman our teacher told us to try the basement bathroom even though my next class was on the 5th floor,” Connolly recalled. “There’s this attitude of, ‘If you want to succeed in dance, you’ll have to deal with bigger stresses of quick changes, so it’s your responsibility to figure it out,’ which I understand, but it seems unnecessary sometimes. Like, I can have one or two more minutes.”
As head of the department, Andersen Grizzell is in charge of this distribution of time and spaces.
“4th period is actually scheduled until 11:15, but I stop class at 11:05, so it’s a total of 15 minutes between 4th and 5th period so they have enough time to change,” Andersen Grizzell stated. “We also start later in order to give the afternoon dancers the time to change; seventh period starts at 12:51, but in the Dance Department we don’t start until 1:00.”
“When I was a student here we didn’t have that luxury; I think we were all sitting in our dance clothes every single class. We just didn’t have the time; it wasn’t given to us,” Andersen Grizzell added.
Andersen Grizzell also sympathized with these issues. “Most of the students are very conscientious, and they want to be in class on time, and they will state that there is not enough space or time. I can’t sacrifice any more instructional time to teaching and I’m even considering taking some of that time away because I just need it, but I understand it makes them feel more comfortable; it allows them mental time to change and switch gears which is important. I know how yucky it is to sit in your leotard, in your tights, all sweaty for several academic periods,” she agreed.
“We only have the one bathroom, which is really tiny here on the second floor, but we encourage them–if possible–to go over to the Music Department bathroom on the second floor for extra space. It’s in the works to take a closet space on the 3rd floor and potentially change it into a changing room to offer them even more. We’ve also considered using the ballroom dressing rooms, but again, there has to be an additional faculty supervisor with a key so it doesn’t just stay open. The closet space is similar, but I think it’s doable,” shared Andersen Grizzell, planning to improve on the space issue.
Discussions
The higher orchestrator of the Theatre and Dance Departments–along with visual arts, music and film–is BSA’s Principal Rosalind Cauthen, more commonly known at the school as “Principal Roz.”
Cauthen was previously the head of BSA’s Theatre Department from 2016 to 2021, when both closet changing rooms were open to actors and all-black attire was not required.
“When I was head of the Theatre Department when I first started here, we had changing rooms at the time. The closets were used sometimes as well, but those big rooms were larger rooms that we could use for both changing and as rehearsal rooms,” Cauthen clarified.
“It used to be all-black back in the day when it all originally started—in the 80s and 90s. Then it kind of loosened up for a little while, and then when Becky [Mossing] became head of the Theatre Department she went back to the all-blacks. But changing out was always a thing,” explained Cauthen.
“Those two closets were our changing rooms for days. Then we underwent our renovation to the building and those changing rooms got turned into a classroom, just right across from the Sylvan,” Cauthen stated.
What Cauthen is referring to is acting studios 116 and 117, which were separated by a barrier and used as changing/rehearsal spaces. This barrier was previously knocked down to convert the two spaces into one big classroom.
“So that did away with those changing rooms, and that is when we started saying, ‘Alright, I guess the actors will have to use the bathrooms, although it’s not the most ideal situation,’” Cauthen recalled.
“Look, I know that sometimes there are issues in the bathrooms, like there’s repairs that need to happen. It’s not an ideal situation. I don’t like the fact that you all have to change in the bathrooms. I wish there was a different scenario, with more space,” Cauthen said.
One notable point is that Cauthen was unaware of the portion of acting and dance students that change openly in the bathroom near the sinks in order to get to their classes punctually.
“I wasn’t totally aware that students were disrobing in that open area,” Cauthen stated. “I thought that most people were using the stalls. I don’t think that the open bathroom area feels safe either.”
“A thought Becky and I have been having is those two closet spaces, perhaps putting some stalls in there. A student could go behind a partition and change and come out,” Cauthen suggested.
“Right now those spaces are storage spaces, so we would, of course, need to find some time and space in the building this summer to clear out all of the store stuff, and then purchase the pieces to make partitions and shelves and that type of thing,” Cauthen explained.
“We wouldn’t want a staff member, like, sitting in there, but like staff members close by and checking in, because I do think we need some type of supervision,” Cauthen added.
“Even though they have a few more bathroom spaces and stuff to change than in the theatre department, there’s still issues with dancers being late to fifth period a lot,” Cauthen addressed. “Even with that 15 minute cushion, it’s still difficult.”
“There is consideration of using the basement,the ballroom bathrooms, that does offer more privacy,” Cauthen proposed. “Of course, it would create a challenge when there’s the Nutcracker and Expressions and all that type of stuff, but I think we should totally be looking at the ballroom dressing rooms for actors to change.”
“I am totally in support of the Theatre Department having improved changing spaces and I recognize the need for that. I’ve been proactively having conversations with Becky about what we can do. It’s complicated—space is very limited at BSA. I always say we’re bursting out of the seams. We really care about you guys, your safety, your support of what you need to fully do your art form at the highest level. I’m well aware that it’s something we need to fix and we need to work on it. We’ll put an implementation plan in place,” concluded Cauthen.
New Spaces
As BSA’s acting and dance students emerge with complaints about the spaces allotted to change clothes during the school day, the heads of both departments are joined by Cauthen in hopes to expand said spaces with staff supervision for safety.
Some barriers for improvement on these issues include time for discussion, expenses of building stalls into changing rooms, converting closets to changing rooms by moving their current storage someplace else, and adult supervision with keys to open spaces that are far from departments. As a result, it has been easier for the administration to require students to use the shared bathrooms to change, which has brought up many mixed feelings and much controversy.
As these barriers are being worked around, changes in these spaces may begin to be resolved over the summer and perhaps implemented next year.
To contact this writer, email Muse Newspaper at musebsa@bsfa.org.
Featured photos by C.T. Pham for The Muse.
