Permanent Hair Loss, Career Ruin: Black Actress Sues Theater Over “Extremely Painful” Hair Damage

A Washington-based stage actor has filed a lawsuit alleging discriminatory conduct by Harvard University’s American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts that caused lasting physical and professional harm.

Nike Imoru claims she suffered “permanent hair loss and painful scalp damage, severe emotional distress, depression and panic attacks” during hairstyling for the theater’s 2025 production of The Odyssey.

The complaint states that Imoru was required to change her hairstyle from knotless silver box braids to a shorter style for the role. Rather than assigning the work to its qualified in-house hair technician, A.R.T. suggested that a backstage employee perform the styling. The employee, identified as a dresser, “had never been retained by A.R.T. in the capacity of a licensed or qualified hair technician,” according to the lawsuit.

Imoru alleges that in February 2025, the employee braided her hair into cornrows using the wrong type of extensions, causing “intense pain” and “red welts” on her scalp. After reporting problems, the cornrows were removed in a process she describes as “extremely painful” that “ripped out her fragile natural hair.” She wore a hairpiece for all but two performances of The Odyssey.

Medical providers later documented her condition. An urgent care provider diagnosed her with “traumatic loss of hair,” and a dermatologist recommended Keralase laser treatments, which Imoru described as procedures that “use lasers to create wounds on the scalp, causing excruciating pain and a burned-skin smell.” The theater agreed to reimburse her for four months of treatment. A scalp biopsy revealed “measurable loss of follicles caused by trauma to the scalp resulting in traction alopecia consistent with repeated pulling on the hair.” Imoru later shaved her head.

Imoru, who is Black, alleges that A.R.T.’s actions violated the CROWN Act—which prohibits race-based discrimination and denial of employment or educational opportunities due to hair texture or protective styles—and the Actors’ Equity Association (“AEA”) collective bargaining agreement, which requires theaters to provide actors with licensed and qualified hair technicians. The complaint claims her hair loss “has destroyed the former trajectory of her career” and caused her to be “withdrawn from public and outward-facing endeavors as an actor.”

Imoru stated: “I was in excruciating pain. I was in such profound shock that I lost a sense of who I was, because my hair is so much a part of who I am. It’s a body part, and it started to shed over the rest of the period I was there until there was nothing except patches left on my head. As a result, I’m suffering permanent hair loss.”

She added: “I believe that the American Repertory Theater is not upholding the values they claim to have around Race. There were contractual safeguards to prevent this kind of injury. But those safeguards weren’t followed. Textured hair requires particular types of care, and I don’t think that was followed through because we had two different disparate sets of treatment.”

The lawsuit also references A.R.T.’s prior anti-racism pledge following a 2014 controversy involving the Off-Broadway production Witness Uganda, later retitled Invisible Thread, directed by Artistic Director Diane M. Paulus, who released an apology on A.R.T.’s website.