STEPHEN MOORER IS AN ACTOR, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, AND THE FOUNDER OF PACIFIC REPERTORY THEATRE. He has successfully directed over 100 productions and produced countless others, excelling in both capacities.
But some past board members say Moorer’s skill with leading theater does not extend to nonprofit finance and administration. He founded the nonprofit that eventually became PacRep in 1983, and has long been executive director. Back in 1993, Moorer started a campaign to save the Golden Bough Playhouse in Carmel and has since been directing – on and off – its ongoing remodel. He oversaw a capital campaign resulting in a $2 million Phase One remodel project that started in 2008 and was completed in 2011.
Phase Two kicked off in 2017 with a fundraising campaign, and was expected to be completed by fall 2022, but it goes on. The project was initially estimated to cost $2.7 million, a figure that has since ballooned to $6.5 million, despite Moorer saying in October 2018 that a gift of $2.3 million from local philanthropist Bertie Bialek Elliott “essentially assures the completion of renovations.”
While the cost was a worry, it was not the reason why eventually, between September of 2021 and September of 2022, the majority of the PacRep board of directors (14 out of 20) resigned, six of them in rapid succession.
“This is a community organization,” says Tom Brocato, one former board member who resigned. “We lacked confidence in the executive director and are concerned about the future of the theater. It’s time for a change.”
THE TENSIONS STARTED when board members say they began pressing for more financial transparency about construction-related expenditures, concerned about increases even in an era of ballooning construction costs.
They decided to seek outside help with overseeing the remodel, and in February 2022 the board hired an independent contractor, Lyle Coe of Coe and Company, as construction manager to oversee the Golden Bough Theater project.
On April 9, records obtained by the Weekly show the board unanimously approved a motion that the construction manager would have oversight of the project, and would be empowered as the decision-maker.
The change of construction management is reflected in a letter that former board chair Jeannette Witten sent to Sullivan Carey-Lang, the building permit technician for the city of Carmel, on Aug. 3. (City correspondence was obtained by the Weekly via a California Public Records Act request.)
“I am writing to clarify that Stephen Moorer should be removed as the contact for the ongoing Golden Bough Theater remodel,” Witten wrote. “This change in contact is not a reflection of Mr. Moorer’s role at Pacific Repertory Theatre but sent simply upon request so that the construction manager can with ease and speed effectively perform the services for which he has been hired.”
But things continued to sour, and what was meant as a fix – hiring a construction manager – turned into a conflict.
Coe describes a pattern of bullying and intimidation by Moorer, whom he’d been hired to help. “He has fought me since day one,” Coe says. Coe reports that he found the project mismanaged. Coe says that never before in his career had he created a separate folder for hate mail only – all sent by Moorer.
In some emails viewed by the Weekly, Moorer takes a combative tone toward Coe. In one, dated Aug. 22, Moorer criticized Coe’s process and wrote to members of the board: “Lyle blew any chance at a waiver on the sound issue by raising it in print rather than in person. As we all (should) know, getting a project completed in Carmel is tricky and takes finessing. It’s small town politicking.”
While a lot of back and forth between the board and Moorer is confidential, the situation escalated enough that in late August 2022, there was a motion at a board meeting to terminate Moorer’s employment with PacRep. The motion was tabled, and a vote was never taken. Within a month, seven of the nonprofit’s remaining 13 boardmembers had resigned (one due to an illness).
“The executive director has been a problem for years,” Antone Duncan says. She resigned after seven years on the board. She uses the same phrase that another former board member, Maddox Haberdasher, uses to describe Moorer: “It’s his way, or no way.”
Some board members, speaking anonymously, say that after the motion to terminate Moorer, he threatened them with potential lawsuits. They say it was this behavior that led to the mass resignations.
OF COURSE, MOORER STILL HAS HIS FANS. "He is a genius,” says Lee Cox, who served on the PacRep board until 2004, and is still involved as a donor. “[Moorer] has a million-dollar budget and is able to do six to eight performances per year.” Six members of the old board remain, and five new board members have been appointed, including some board members from years past. On Oct. 14, new board chair Karyl Hall again wrote to Carmel City Hall to say Moorer is again authorized to deal with the city on PacRep’s behalf regarding renovations. “Letters from the previous chair are out of date, and should be disregarded,” Hall wrote.
The project moves forward and while the theater is now a hole in the ground, Moorer is hopeful about getting the last $1.8 million raised for the $6.5 million total budget, and the project is awaiting a final building permit from the city after cost overruns and changes during the pandemic.
Two board members who stayed – Karyl Hall, the current chair, and Lee Rosen – blame the rift on the board on new members failing to understand the complexity of a project of this scale. They describe two groups: One that believed Coe was the expert, and one that believed Moorer, a theater person who knows the ins and outs of the building, was an expert.
Coe resigned from the project on Oct. 25. The board has hired a new architect of record, the Design Collaborative, and is moving forward in hopes of securing a final permit soon. “We are feeling so optimistic,” Hall says.
Moorer denies claims that he ever threatened board members or understated project spending. He also says he was never the lead on construction, but was part of a five-person team: “I was never in charge,” he says.
He adds that board member resignations and turnover are not uncommon – “it’s all kind of normal.”
Is it much ado about nothing, or is something rotten in the state of PacRep? Now that Moorer’s detractors have moved on from the board, it will be up to a new board to decide.