from the poll bulletin board
edited for redundancy but with all pertinent points intact
comments from Randy Bowser in parenthesis
"This play was awesome! I have been waiting for months for this CD... Please proceed with making this album! Mandy Rebel" (patron who wrote the glowing letter-to-the-editor about Metro on Christmas Day of 2002--RB)
"Note from the editor, Randy Bowser: PLEASE READ LAST comment...This is the kind of personal attack which has previously only been stated in private as the "reason" for cancelling the project."
Don't make the METROPOLIS experience and the theater's image and future suffer becuase of your own fear and jealousy. Release the CD."(from one of the most hard working Metro volunteers--RB)
I am not aware of writing anything on my website which is other than the facts as they have been given me by the Board. Nothing vaguely "libelous" has ever been written or said by me anywhere...
I ...have lent thousands of hours to Pentacle for producing very popular shows, have generated outstanding publicity for the theatre, and it gives me pleasure to have succeeded at those things. People in my position usually do garner disdain from the envious. I'm afraid I can't save them from themselves...
The power of distrust, hate, and envy are always destructive, and in the case of this project, has completely distorted things so that the CD is no longer about the hard working cast and the theatre which deserves the attention."
Hey Randy... - We dont want you here. Didnt you say you were leaving? Wasn't Metropolis your last show here? What happened to New York City? Broadway?...We just wish you were gone, like you said in the paper you would be.
Until that very day - I will work tirelessly to make sure you know your place, your not some theatre GOD." (the style of this post matches exactly that of hate email I have gotten over the last year from a well-known Pentacle volunteer--RB)
This issue shouldn't be about people's opinions of each other, this is about a product... Jonathan Pedersen"(Metro cast member--RB)
--EVEN WITH THE FUNDING WHICH I DO INDEED HAVE---the Board has to approve the project. Why?---
--Because the contract with Joe Brooks ONLY allows the CD to be made and sold as a fund raiser for Pentacle Theatre. There is absolutely no other way it will be allowed.
--The contract also explicitly states THE ONLY way the CD may sold is through Pentacle, in the lobby and at the ticket office. To do that, the Board has to approve.
--Anyone who still hasn't signed a waiver must do so before the CD can legally be mass-produced.
SO---I know the situation has been confusing, and many side issues have made it even more so. But the point is that even with funding, this MUST be a Pentacle project, as outlined above, as per the requirements of the ONLY contract (composer) Joe Brook's company will allow.--Randy Bowser"
Personal feelings for Randy have nothing to do with the release of a CD, and the comments made about Randy are neither pertinent nor appropriate, and are just ugly. -Melissa K. Turner" (Metro cast member--RB)
On August 28, 2003, a full 9 months after planning for the CD first began, Pentacle's Board of Directors decided to suspend all connection with the CD project.
The final and official "reason" for cancelling the CD has exactly nothing to do with the merits of the project and shows exactly zero respect for the volunteers who labored hundreds of hours to create the CD.
The Board was offended that I dared to talk about their discussions about the CD on this website, and that I made any attempt to pass on the limited informaton they siphoned out to me to all of you who were constantly asking me why the CD was being delayed.
Something very troubling has happened with all this. Surely there are lessons to be extracted from it all.
If my perceived "arrogance" has bothered some people so much that it led to the aborting of this Pentacle-boosting project---then some very serious adjustments need to be made in the theatre's decision making process.
I'm experiencing profound embarrassment for The Board over this disaster. I sincerely hope this fiasco doesn't do the damage to Pentacle's reputation that I fear it probably will.
I have never spent one second working on a Pentacle project as actor, director, musician, sound designer, scenery painter, booth operator, with anything larger than the motto of "The Play's The Thing!" foremost in my mind. And Pentacle has benefited enormously as a result.
Sincerely,
Randy Bowser