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.
(2) comments
November 3, 2022
Carmel, California
Mr. Faries and Ms. Popeda,
Regarding the Weekly article (10/29/22), “Sometimes a dramatic story begins with an anonymous tip,” I’d like to, as a lover of theatre and ardent supporter of PacRep, take an exacting exception to your imprecise piece.
Primarily what Mr. Faries wrote is an attempted defense for an earlier Weekly article written by Agata Popeda (10/27/22), which emphasized, erroneously as it turns out (due to a paucity of research), that a, “majority of the PacRep board of directors (14 out of 20)resigned, six of them in rapid succession.”
If Ms. Popeda had been thorough in her research, as your piece implies was the case, it would have been clear that her assertion was deceptive enough to be just short of slanderously false. The whole truth is that eight of the board members leaving had nothing to do with the six who precipitously chose to resign altogether; the original eight left for reasons completely unrelated. And of the six members who did resign, only half are now, way after the fact, openly complaining (which is, by the way, an egregious violation of their positions as prior members). In the end, three openly disgruntled ex-members is quite different from the purposefully misleading, “14 out of 20.” Though, admittedly, it isn’t as splashy a headline.
Furthermore, Ms. Popeda’s article references a failed attempt by those few disgruntled board members to fire Mr. Moorer – a central founder and Executive Director of PacRep since 1983 – by bringing such a motion to the entire board. Now, it takes only one person to bring a motion and only one more to second it – hardly an indication of any board of directors’ intentions as a whole. As the article asserts, “the motion was tabled, and a vote was never taken.” This is yet another example of incomplete reportage: when motions are tabled and votes not taken it is precisely because those making the motion have zero support among the board at large. A tabled motion is an indication that the ideas and complaints of those displeased few are overwhelmingly disavowed by the rest of the board. In fact, the tabled motion is, in a way, a vote in support of Mr. Moorer. That is the story, not that there was, in a slurring reference to the theatre company’s Executive Director, “something rotten in PacRep.”
Some more observations regarding the Weeky October 27th article:
1. Regarding Mr. Moorer’s conflict as Executive Director with the contractor hired to help renovate the Golden Bough, Ms. Popeda again fails to recognize the essence of the disagreement. Clashes with contractors are nothing new in this world, everyone understands that. But more to the point, building a theatre is an astoundingly complex and unique project which demands specific experience and knowledge of what makes-up a theatre, from the house, the dressing rooms, to the fly systems. Anyone who’s been around such an endeavor knows this to be true. Contractors aren’t the arbiters of what’s needed in these instances, theatre experts are: luckily for PacRep, Mr. Moorer is one.
2. Concerning cost overruns remodeling the Golden Bough Theatre due to two devastating years of Covid shutdowns and the worldwide collapse of supply chains, along with exponentially soaring costs in building materials? Yes, PacRep was impacted along with every other business in existence. But unlike so many other businesses, Stephen Moorer and the PacRep staff were able to keep the Forest Theatre viable and running; additionally, the Circle Theatre was kept open and used continuously for rehearsals and other essential purposes. While referencing the current state of the Golden Bough, Ms. Popeda sees only, “the theatre is now a hole in the ground.” It’s worth noting: the Empire State building was once only a hole in the ground. Along with every other construction site since the pyramids. But isn’t it always the case that those with sufficient vision to see what can fill a hole, inevitably come up against those who only see a hole?
Additionally it’s essential to note that the article appears to make the assumption that, while Mr. Moorer has successfully run PacRep for decades raising its assets to over 8 million dollars, with a yearly million dollar budget, while simultaneously raising six-hundred thousand a year in donations, and having raised 2 million for finishing Phase One of the Golden Bough’s renovation (which, finally fact-checking yourselves from your first article, you corrected from your misinformed statement of 5 million); and as of today, over 4.5 million for Phase Two has been raised. But suddenly, it's suggested, Mr. Moorer is wholly incapable of grasping PacRep’s financial concerns. Why is this?
Because Mr. Moorer’s expertise, the article contends, is “theatrical” and “does not extend to nonprofit finance and administration.” Really? The above stated, indisputable facts don’t bear that out, at all. It is too often a clichéd and prejudicial misconception that artists are fiscally irresponsible and shouldn’t be trusted with things like money. You and Ms. Popeda dog-whistle this affronting fallacy in both articles, implicitly, simply for the sake of faux sensationalism and never as a matter of journalism.
3. Finally, Ms. Popeda cites “anonymous” board members (read: the disgruntled few who resigned) who say they were threatened by Mr. Moorer with lawsuits, and in the case of the contractor, with, “bullying and intimidation… [and] hate mail.” Ms. Popeda says she read some of the emails in her research and then editorialized to say Mr. Moorer, “took a combative tone,” towards the contractor in those emails. When she picks and cites the most offending email (dated 8/22), it is prima facie, wholly benign. What the email shows is that the contractor, having failed to obtain a sound-issue waiver with the city due to his inexperience, “blew any chance at a waiver.” When Mr. Moorer points out the contractor’s lack of finesse and know-how navigating city politics it’s not hateful, it’s truthful.
Regarding the threats of lawsuits towards board members, Popeda offers no proof or supporting facts for the assertion, other than the unsubstantiated word of someone refusing to reveal themselves and who unmistakably, months later, still carries a grudge against Mr. Moorer. Ms. Popeda might do well to read the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution before quoting any anonymous source ever again.
As to Mr, Farie's defense (published 10/29) of Ms. Popeda’s incompletely researched piece: you further poison the well, too clever by half, from the get-go.
Let’s start with the piece’s title, “Sometimes a dramatic story begins with an anonymous tip.” There is nothing inherently or overtly dramatic in the story of a few malcontent members exiting PacRep’s board of directors; in fact, the implicated events are unquestionably quotidian, banal, prosaic, anticlimactic, not worth the ink. According to Ms. Popeda herself, “board member resignations and turnover are not uncommon – ‘it’s all kind of normal’.”
Yet you, to stoke a cheesy headline, suggest what transpired is highly dramatic. Mister Faries, there is – and as a purported reporter you should know this -- all the difference in the world between exposing a crime and inventing one.
Wouldn’t a better researched, more accurate, less purposefully inflammatory headline have read, as an example: How an anonymous tip revealed the exceptional resilience of PacRep under the guidance of Stephen Moorer?
Like Ms. Popeda, you none-too-subtly decry the Golden Bough’s justifiably delayed renovation by captioning the photo of Mr. Moorer outside the playhouse with, “demolition inside means there is currently a big, empty pit in the ground where the seating area used to be.” So? Why is this an issue for you, even to the point where you feel a need to contrive a calamity? As stated above, all construction of this sort presupposes pre-building excavation; you clearly understand this, so it’s reasonable to conclude that you’re purposefully concocting a false alarm for the sake of a specious headline.
And in as much as using “an anonymous tip” in your headline as a means to entice your readers, it’s the lowest form of yellow journalism. What if I were to contend that “anonymous sources” informed me that your anonymous sources were in cahoots with you to undermine PacRep and its Executive Director. And then print it -- as if it were fact -- even if totally unsubstantiated. Would that be all right by you? Or would you deem it irresponsible in the extreme?
You openly admit that anonymous tips are, “a blank slate.” And as every child knows, a tabula rasa can have anything written on it, even lies and half-truths, which can often be worse than outright dissembling. You acknowledge that and contend that obviating errors is done through rigorous journalism and, “as information begins to dribble in… the story unfolds.” You also admit that, “such stories have lots of parts,” and that Ms. Popeda peered, “behind the scenes of a swelling dispute,” to uncover and reveal those parts.
What you failed to point out is that Ms. Popeda got her fundamental facts wrong from the beginning and that your article, doubling-down, expanded and compounded the misinformation. Your article further cited the rudiments of journalism, which everyone learns in secondary school: who, what, when, where, and how. And though your defense of Ms. Popeda’s article reads more like a prof giving their pupil a conciliatory pat on the back than a skilled review, you fail to point out that her article, while doing the easy work of who-what-when-where, never fully investigated the how and never even addressed the why.
The why and the how are where the truth of every story lies – the rest is just atmosphere, color, window dressing. Both your and Ms. Popeda’s stories omitted and totally ignored uncovering the fundamental aspects of people’s motivation and purpose. It seems clear neither of you obtained denials or confirmations on the principal questions you titillate, often obliquely alluding malfeasance, but never offering evidence -- only anonymous ballyhoo.
As a result, on both of your parts, you ignore the damage done to reputations through your journalistic negligence. A more comprehensive professionalism and integrity in the Weekly reporting might have instead pointed out the heroic efforts taken by the extant and new members of PacRep’s board of directors to finally bring their vision to fruition; or conversely, pointed out the shortcomings of those who resigned and why they were necessarily jettisoned; or raised community awareness about supporting a cultural gem in their midst during its tough times. But instead, you chose the cheap shots as an attempt to draw more eyeballs.
Thank you for your time,
November 3, 2022
Carmel, California
Mr. Faries and Ms. Popeda,
Regarding the Weekly article (10/29/22), “Sometimes a dramatic story begins with an anonymous tip,” I’d like to, as a lover of theatre and ardent supporter of PacRep, take an exacting exception to Mr. Faries' imprecise piece.
Primarily what Mr. Faries wrote is an attempted defense for an earlier Weekly article written by Agata Popeda (10/27/22), which emphasized, erroneously as it turns out (due to a paucity of research), that a, “majority of the PacRep board of directors (14 out of 20) resigned, six of them in rapid succession.”
If Ms. Popeda had been thorough in her research, as your piece implies was the case, it would have been clear that her assertion was deceptive enough to be just short of slanderously false. The whole truth is that eight of the board members leaving had nothing to do with the six who precipitously chose to resign altogether; the original eight left for reasons completely unrelated. And of the six members who did resign, only half are now, way after the fact, openly complaining (which is, by the way, an egregious violation of their positions as prior members). In the end, three openly disgruntled ex-members is quite different from the purposefully misleading, “14 out of 20.” Though, admittedly, it isn’t as splashy a headline.
Furthermore, Ms. Popeda’s article references a failed attempt by those few disgruntled board members to fire Mr. Moorer – a central founder and Executive Director of PacRep since 1983 – by bringing such a motion to the entire board. Now, it takes only one person to bring a motion and only one more to second it – hardly an indication of any board of directors’ intentions as a whole. As the article asserts, “the motion was tabled, and a vote was never taken.” This is yet another example of incomplete reportage: when motions are tabled and votes not taken it is precisely because those making the motion have zero support among the board at large. A tabled motion is an indication that the ideas and complaints of those displeased few are overwhelmingly disavowed by the rest of the board. In fact, the tabled motion is, in a way, a vote in support of Mr. Moorer. That is the story, not that there was, in a slurring reference to the theatre company’s Executive Director, “something rotten in PacRep.”
Some more observations regarding the Weeky October 27th article:
1. Regarding Mr. Moorer’s conflict as Executive Director with the contractor hired to help renovate the Golden Bough, Ms. Popeda again fails to recognize the essence of the disagreement. Clashes with contractors are nothing new in this world, everyone understands that. But more to the point, building a theatre is an astoundingly complex and unique project which demands specific experience and knowledge of what makes-up a theatre, from the house, the dressing rooms, to the fly systems. Anyone who’s been around such an endeavor knows this to be true. Contractors aren’t the arbiters of what’s needed in these instances, theatre experts are: luckily for PacRep, Mr. Moorer is one.
2. Concerning cost overruns remodeling the Golden Bough Theatre due to two devastating years of Covid shutdowns and the worldwide collapse of supply chains, along with exponentially soaring costs in building materials? Yes, PacRep was impacted along with every other business in existence. But unlike so many other businesses, Stephen Moorer and the PacRep staff were able to keep the Forest Theatre viable and running; additionally, the Circle Theatre was kept open and used continuously for rehearsals and other essential purposes. While referencing the current state of the Golden Bough, Ms. Popeda sees only, “the theatre is now a hole in the ground.” It’s worth noting: the Empire State building was once only a hole in the ground. Along with every other construction site since the pyramids. But isn’t it always the case that those with sufficient vision to see what can fill a hole, inevitably come up against those who only see a hole?
Additionally it’s essential to note that the article appears to make the assumption that, while Mr. Moorer has successfully run PacRep for decades raising its assets to over 8 million dollars, with a yearly million dollar budget, while simultaneously raising six-hundred thousand a year in donations, and having raised 2 million for finishing Phase One of the Golden Bough’s renovation (which, finally fact-checking yourselves from your first article, you corrected from your misinformed statement of 5 million); and as of today, over 4.5 million for Phase Two has been raised. But suddenly, it's suggested, Mr. Moorer is wholly incapable of grasping PacRep’s financial concerns. Why is this?
Because Mr. Moorer’s expertise, the article contends, is “theatrical” and “does not extend to nonprofit finance and administration.” Really? The above stated, indisputable facts don’t bear that out, at all. It is too often a clichéd and prejudicial misconception that artists are fiscally irresponsible and shouldn’t be trusted with things like money. You and Ms. Popeda dog-whistle this affronting fallacy in both articles, implicitly, simply for the sake of faux sensationalism and never as a matter of journalism.
3. Finally, Ms. Popeda cites “anonymous” board members (read: the disgruntled few who resigned) who say they were threatened by Mr. Moorer with lawsuits, and in the case of the contractor, with, “bullying and intimidation… [and] hate mail.” Ms. Popeda says she read some of the emails in her research and then editorialized to say Mr. Moorer, “took a combative tone,” towards the contractor in those emails. When she picks and cites the most offending email (dated 8/22), it is prima facie, wholly benign. What the email shows is that the contractor, having failed to obtain a sound-issue waiver with the city due to his inexperience, “blew any chance at a waiver.” When Mr. Moorer points out the contractor’s lack of finesse and know-how navigating city politics it’s not hateful, it’s truthful.
Regarding the threats of lawsuits towards board members, Popeda offers no proof or supporting facts for the assertion, other than the unsubstantiated word of someone refusing to reveal themselves and who unmistakably, months later, still carries a grudge against Mr. Moorer. Ms. Popeda might do well to read the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution before quoting any anonymous source ever again.
As to Mr, Faries' defense (published 10/29) of Ms. Popeda’s incompletely researched piece: you further poison the well, too clever by half, from the get-go. Let’s start with the piece’s title, “Sometimes a dramatic story begins with an anonymous tip.” There is nothing inherently or overtly dramatic in the story of a few malcontent members exiting PacRep’s board of directors; in fact, the implicated events are unquestionably quotidian, banal, prosaic, anticlimactic, not worth the ink. According to Ms. Popeda herself, “board member resignations and turnover are not uncommon – ‘it’s all kind of normal’.”
Yet you, to stoke a cheesy headline, suggest what transpired is highly dramatic. Mister Faries, there is – and as a purported reporter you should know this -- all the difference in the world between exposing a crime and inventing one. Wouldn’t a better researched, more accurate, less purposefully inflammatory headline have read, as an example: How an anonymous tip revealed the exceptional resilience of PacRep under the guidance of Stephen Moorer?
Like Ms. Popeda, you none-too-subtly decry the Golden Bough’s justifiably delayed renovation by captioning the photo of Mr. Moorer outside the playhouse with, “demolition inside means there is currently a big, empty pit in the ground where the seating area used to be.” So? Why is this an issue for you, even to the point where you feel a need to contrive a calamity? As stated above, all construction of this sort presupposes pre-building excavation; you clearly understand this, so it’s reasonable to conclude that you’re purposefully concocting a false alarm for the sake of a specious headline.
And in as much as using “an anonymous tip” in your headline as a means to entice your readers, it’s the lowest form of yellow journalism. What if I were to contend that “anonymous sources” informed me that your anonymous sources were in cahoots with you to undermine PacRep and its Executive Director. And then print it -- as if it were fact -- even if totally unsubstantiated. Would that be all right by you? Or would you deem it irresponsible in the extreme?
You openly admit that anonymous tips are, “a blank slate.” And as every child knows, a tabula rasa can have anything written on it, even lies and half-truths, which can often be worse than outright dissembling. You acknowledge that and contend that obviating errors is done through rigorous journalism and, “as information begins to dribble in… the story unfolds.” You also admit that, “such stories have lots of parts,” and that Ms. Popeda peered, “behind the scenes of a swelling dispute,” to uncover and reveal those parts.
What you failed to point out is that Ms. Popeda got her fundamental facts wrong from the beginning and that your article, doubling-down, expanded and compounded the misinformation. Your article further cited the rudiments of journalism, which everyone learns in secondary school: who, what, when, where, and how. And though your defense of Ms. Popeda’s article reads more like a prof giving their pupil a conciliatory pat on the back than a skilled review, you fail to point out that her article, while doing the easy work of who-what-when-where, never fully investigated the how and never even addressed the why.
The why and the how are where the truth of every story lies – the rest is just atmosphere, color, window dressing. Both your and Ms. Popeda’s stories omitted and totally ignored uncovering the fundamental aspects of people’s motivation and purpose. It seems clear neither of you obtained denials or confirmations on the principal questions you titillate, often obliquely alluding malfeasance, but never offering evidence -- only anonymous ballyhoo.
As a result, on both of your parts, you ignore the damage done to reputations through your journalistic negligence. A more comprehensive professionalism and integrity in the Weekly reporting might have instead pointed out the heroic efforts taken by the extant and new members of PacRep’s board of directors to finally bring their vision to fruition; or conversely, pointed out the shortcomings of those who resigned and why they were necessarily jettisoned; or raised community awareness about supporting a cultural gem in their midst during its tough times. But instead, you chose the cheap shots as an attempt to draw more eyeballs.
Thank you for your time,
Paul Barber
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