‘The Cosby Assault’: continuing the conversation at the 2015 Fringe

Will we still be talking about Bill Cosby next September? Victor Fiorillo thinks we will, and he’s working on a play for next year’s Philly Fringe to remind us in case the conversation stops. Fiorillo has been involved in this conversation since he worked on a 2005 Philadelphia Magazine article about sexual assault allegations against Cosby. Since that time, he’s kept an eye on the story, and now he writes about it frequently as more accusers come forward with sadly similar stories about a beloved icon and father figure who is now accused of the unthinkable.

Why now?

Why has the story gained traction now in a way it did not when that article was published? Fiorillo attributes part of that to the influence of social media.

“The Twitter meme of Cosby as a rapist keeps the story moving and gets it in front of a lot of eyes,” he says, even though “Cosby has a great team of brand managers and lawyers who kept the story quiet.”

Fiorillo also notes that we have a lot of questions when anyone comes forward with an accusation of sexual assault: “The average person chose not to believe it.”

Now that 21 women have gone public as of December 7, people are starting to believe the stories. And it’s not clear how many accusers there potentially are. When a lawsuit was first brought in 2005, there were 13 Jane Doe witnesses. We do not know, Fiorillo says, how many of the Jane Does are included in the ones that have gone public today, so the number may increase.

Journalism to theater

“I’m extremely well versed in the story,” Fiorillo says of why he’s the right person to tell it. “I’ve been following it closely since 2005.”

An experienced journalist, he wants to branch out into playwriting and producing. Adapting this story for the stage allows him to present the material “in a new way for the public to consume.” The final production, he envisions, will involve multimedia moments, recordings, and perhaps music in some way. Whether Cosby will be present as a character in the show or not is yet to be determined.

The story, Fiorillo acknowledges, “will snowball and then go away,” so he wants to find a way to build in the flexibility to make changes as the story changes, whether it is more women coming forward or the discrediting of one of the accusers. Recently, Cosby filed his own suit against one of the women.

A team and a campaign

So far, Fiorillo has put together a team that includes Amy Smith (cofounder of Headlong Dance Theater, formed in 1993 in Philadelphia), actor and playwright Jennifer Kidwell, and James Ijames (actor, director, playwright), and he is still looking for someone to collaborate with on the writing.

A Kickstarter campaign, ending on Sunday, December 21, hopes to fund the writing, directing, and workshopping of The Cosby Assault, as well as some of the production costs of its Festival debut.