Civic Doody

The Negotiation That Wasn't

2012-02-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

On January 20th, Civic reached out to me through an intermediary - a respected neutral party - in what appeared to be an effort to move toward a resolution of the matter that precipitated the existence of this blog. I was asked what would be required to make that happen. I replied that Civic need only initiate formal settlement talks in response to the original demand letter that was sent by our attorney back in March of 2011. The intermediary reported this back to Civic.

Three weeks went by with no word from Civic. During that time, in the absence of any indication that Civic was ready to move forward toward a settlement, I continued the work of seeking justice for my family, as I have done for the last sixteen months. Among other things, I created an interactive timeline detailing some of the major events that have occurred during Yvonne Ardyth Kovacevich Johnson's tenure at Civic using a website called Timetoast.com. I did not publish the timeline on Civic Doody, but it was "live" out there on the interwebs, where Ms. Johnson apparently stumbled upon it. (It would appear that she spends a great deal of time Googling herself and/or the theater to find out what I'm up to.)

On February 16th, Yvonne A.K. Johnson called the intermediary in a frantic state, furious that I had continued my campaign against her and saying that she was no longer interested in seeking a resolution. The intermediary relayed this to me and asked for a response. I explained that, as far as I was concerned, Civic had not made any movement toward such a resolution and that I had no reason to ease the pressure until I received an official overture of some kind. I indicated that I would suspend all activity related to the matter the very moment I was invited to the negotiation table.

Then I realized that I was being presented with an opportunity to make a gesture of good faith. Ms. Johnson was apparently very concerned about one particular piece of information revealed in the timeline that she repeatedly referred to as "slanderous." (This is not the first time she has accused me of slander. In fact, I've received stern threats of legal action from Civic's attorney on the basis of allegedly defamatory or slanderous statements. Unfortunately for Civic, I have never published a single false word on Civic Doody - and so legal action has not been taken in the six months since those threats were made. This new piece of information is no exception.) And so, as a show of good faith, I made a pledge to suspend all of my efforts until Wednesday, February 22nd at 5:00pm, in order to give Civic an opportunity to open formal negotiations. I took down the timeline so that it was no longer viewable by anyone.

As of 5:01pm on February 22nd, my phone has not rung. It would appear that Yvonne A.K. Johnson had no intention of seeking a resolution in the first place. Nothing has changed since she first reached out, so there is no reason for her position to have changed at all. This is obviously quite perplexing. The only theory I have developed is that maybe she actually thought that if she told the intermediary that she wanted this to be over, the intermediary would tell me that she wanted it to be over, and I would say "Oh...okay." I can see no other rational explanation for her behavior in this matter (as irrational as that is). I have been told by the intermediary that even an apology was off the table. Now let me tell you...I couldn't care less about an apology. I really couldn't. That said, it seems to me that an apology would be the absolute least I could possibly be asking for. If all I wanted was an apology, Civic would be getting off scot-free and Yvonne A.K. Johnson would have masterfully negotiated this debacle into the sunset. Apparently she is not even willing to go that far. Something tells me that this will continue for another sixteen months...at least.

I will resume work on the timeline and let you know when it is finished. For now, I will simply share the piece of information that so concerned Ms. Johnson. Just days before Civic received the infamous blackmail email, I had several drinks with Johnson at the Hop Shop. (I paid, for the record.) One of the main topics of conversation was the behavior of board president Michael Muzatko after he had not received the role he so desperately wanted in White Christmas. He had become more sullen and nasty than usual. Johnson told me that she was considering asking Muzatko to take a leave of absence from the board - or possibly to step down altogether. She asked for my advice. I supported the idea. That all fell by the wayside on October 15, 2010. Muzatko and Johnson have been thick as thieves since then - and it appears that Muzatko was never made aware of this, otherwise Johnson would not have reacted so hysterically to its revelation.

That's it for now. Next week, Civic Doody will bring you the story of Charles and Maria Mix's departure from Civic after a confrontation with Yvonne A.K. Johnson. If you would like to submit events to be included in the timeline, please send them to civicdoodyspokane@gmail.com.

Doody is Clogging Civic's Pipes

2012-02-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

PLEASE NOTE: This is obviously NOT the official site of Spokane Civic Theatre. That can be found at www.spokanecivictheatre.com. This site is here for the purposes of commentary and criticism. There is nothing for sale on this site, nor is the site itself for sale. If you would like to purchase tickets for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Catfish Moon, The Cunt of Monte Cristo (directed by Yvonne A.K. Johnson), BINGO, Duck Hunter Shoots Angel, Annie, The Producers, White Christmas, Escanaba In Love, The Drowsy Chaperone, Treasure Island, Grease, Next To Normal, On Golden Pond, The Dixie Swim Club, or Happy Days the Musical - please visit THIS LINK to Spokane Civic Theatre's ticketing page.

This site can be found at:
www.spokanecivictheatre.org
www.spokanecivictheater.org
www.civicdoody.com

UPDATE (2/13/12): We just crossed the 6,000 pageview mark over the weekend! Thanks...and keep the hits coming!

CORRECTION: I reported last week that the Always...Interplayers benefit had raised $3000. I was wrong. We raised $3600! Again...thanks to everyone involved for making it a great night and a great demonstration of what can happen when we work together as a community.

Please continue to support local theater! Get your tickets for the Lake City Playhouse In Concert production of South Pacific (in which my lovely wife will play the role of Nellie)! Also, be sure to catch Interplayers' production of Mauritius. Interplayers has been unable to properly market Mauritius because this licensing agency was also somehow made aware of their financial difficulties, resulting in a clamp down on their ability to advertise titles before the rights are paid for. Generally, theaters are allowed to pay-as-they-go, in recognition of the fact that the business of theater can be financially tenuous at times.

Ready for a good laugh? Look what showed up in my mailbox yesterday:

I don't know about you, but I'll be sending in my donation right away! Actually, I'll be taking advantage of the postage-paid envelope to demand that I be removed from the mailing list. (No, I will not heed the plea to include a stamp and "offset [Civic's] annual mailing costs." Perhaps if they're so worried about costs, they should be more careful about whom they send these to. I would encourage you to do the same with yours!

In any event, Civic appears to be rolling out a lovely new PR campaign designed to burnish Yvonne A.K. Johnson's image by extolling her accomplishments. An entire page of this fancy-shmancy brochure is dedicated to "Highlights and Achievements from 2005-2012." That's weird. A seven-year lookback? Kind of arbitrary, isn't it? Unless, of course, the annual fund brochure is less about Spokane Civic Theatre and more about Yvonne A.K. Johnson? Naturally, there is no mention of the damage she has done to countless individuals, the hostility she has created within the community, or the boundless resources she has devoted to unsuccessfully attempting to clean up the disaster she created when she terminated me. (It is sad to note that Civic has now likely spent more time, energy, money, and face battling to protect Yvonne A.K. Johnson's ego than would have been required to settle this matter many months ago. In doing so, they have granted me victory after victory, strengthening my position exponentially.)

This page is now averaging about 50 hits per day as a baseline. (That number spikes when I actively alert people to the presence of a new post.) While that number would be profoundly unimpressive if I was hoping to sell ad space, it is a shockingly high number for an obscure gripe site focused on a community theater in the 101st largest city (by population) in the United States. This tells me that the internet is now organically sending viewers here, many of whom have likely been diverted in their attempt to reach the theater's actual webpage. In fact, it is my understanding that Civic had to completely redesign its webpage because CD had been so successful in diverting traffic and had risen so precipitously in search rankings.

Lastly, please come "Like" our new Facebook page "Spokane Civic Pride .org." This is a response to Civic's new campaign entitled "Spokane Civic Pride." Hilariously, they have apparently not learned any lessons and I was able to register http://www.spokanecivicpride.org just as surely and easily as I registered www.spokanecivictheatre.org and www.spokanecivictheater.org. Ah, the fun never ends!

About to cross the 6,000 pageview mark as of 2/10/12 at 12:45 pm. Keep those hits coming!

$3000

2012-01-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

Always...Interplayers was a smashing success last night, raising over $3000 for Interplayers - enough to secure the rights to Always...Patsy Cline and then some! It was a great night for local theater, as it brought together so many people who care deeply about the community as a whole - actors, musicians, artistic directors, board members (including a couple of Civic's), and friends of the arts. Together, we all demonstrated that a community can work together to help each other succeed and that the right thing can and will happen when people step up and make it happen. Many, many thanks to all of the wonderful people who contributed their time and talent to the evening and especially to those who gave so generously through their ticket purchases, auction bids, and additional donations.

Always...Interplayers was directed by Troy Nickerson, hosted by Molly Allen, produced by Michelle Holland, musically directed by Carolyn Jess and Jim Ryan, accompanied by Rob Peterson (bass), Mark Tietjen (drums), and Larry Jess (trumpet). It featured Andrew Ware Lewis, Abbey Crawford, David Gigler, Emily Cleveland, James Pendleton, Lynette Knapp, Kent Kimball, Renei Yarrow, Todd Kehne, Robby French, Reed McColm, and the cast of Lake City Playhouse's production of Rent. A special message of inter-theater unity was delivered by George Green, artistic director of Lake City Playhouse.

Always...Interplayers

2012-01-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

Don't miss an evening with Abbey Crawford, Patrick Treadway, David Gigler, Andrew Ware Lewis, Renei Yarrow, Todd Kehne, Emily Cleveland, Kent Kimball, James Pendleton, Lynette Ryan, Reed McColm, the cast of Lake City Playhouse's Rent and more!

Tickets are now available through the Interplayers box office. If you cannot attend but would like to donate, you can make a donation with your credit card by calling the box office.

For more details, please visit the Always...Interplayers Facebook page HERE.

Yet Another Victim

2012-01-16T10:44:00.001-07:00

[PLEASE NOTE: This is obviously NOT the official site of Spokane Civic Theatre. That can be found at www.spokanecivictheatre.com. This site is here for the purposes of commentary and criticism. There is nothing for sale on this site, nor is the site itself for sale. If you would like to purchase tickets for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Catfish Moon, The Cunt of Monte Cristo (directed by Yvonne A.K. Johnson), BINGO, Duck Hunter Shoots Angel, Annie, The Producers, White Christmas, Escanaba In Love, The Drowsy Chaperone, Treasure Island, Grease, Next To Normal, On Golden Pond, The Dixie Swim Club, or Happy Days the Musical - please visit THIS LINK to Spokane Civic Theatre's ticketing page.]

Before I get into the subject of this post's title, allow me to say something positive for a change. In the past several weeks I have concluded a tremendously successful run of Sisters of Swing at Interplayers and begun a fantastic production of Rent at Lake City Playhouse - beginning with a sold-out opening weekend! For the past fifteen months, I have been unduly fixated on what I not doing - namely, the job I moved here for. Today, however, I am grateful and fulfilled on several levels. First, I feel vindicated. Apparently other theaters have no issues employing me - and their audiences seem to have no issues attending shows that I am involved with. (In fact, Rent was graced with the presence of Civic board member Jason Heppler at today's performance! I am shocked that he was willing to be seen at a theater that would hire a person like me.)

More importantly, both of these institutions have been an honor and a pleasure to work with and for. Reed McColm and George Green treat people with a level of respect that I had nearly forgotten existed at the executive level. They foster an environment that is positive, supportive, and conducive to the making of excellent entertainment. Specifically, both of these men treated me as though I brought something to the table that was valuable to them, rather than as a minion to rule over. My expertise was profoundly respected. My opinions and requests were heard - really heard - and responded to. It is because they treat everyone this way that both institutions feel vibrant, buoyant, cheerful, and full of life (redundancy intended). And they accomplish all of this on very limited budgets. (Before anyone uses that as fodder for justification of tyranny, I hasten to point out once again that Interplayers pays its artists. Both Interplayers and Lake City Playhouse have mortgages. I would refer you to my post Community Apples and Professional Oranges.)

The same goes for Troy Nickerson and Abbey Crawford, who directed these productions. They bring extraordinary competence and heart to their productions. They collaborate rather than command. They create rather than manufacture. I realized yesterday just how fortunate I am to be working right now on Rent, rather than on what I would be working on if I still had my job at Civic. While occasional gigs will not be able to sustain my career in Spokane, I am very happy to have had these wonderful opportunities to work with these wonderful people on these wonderful projects.

Now, on to the nitty gritty...

In the fourteen months that have passed since my termination, Spokane Civic Theatre has had an interim music director and a full-time replacement for my former position. The interim was driven to the brink of emotional and psychological meltdown, according to those who were close to her. The other was similarly abused for months and, during the month of December, was bullied into resigning his position and accepting a new contract as an hourly employee - all, it would seem, so that Civic could avoid the horrible appearance of having terminated yet another resident musical director.

I know very little about the tenure of the interim, Nancy, other than what I have been told by those who were close to her. According to the account of one prominent Civic insider, she had reached an emotional breaking point at which she once had to be physically restrained from running blindly into traffic while hyperventilating and crying hysterically in response to an encounter with Yvonne A.K. Johnson. I am also told that she was explicitly prohibited from socializing with members of the Civic community. Once it was clear that she would not be compatible with Johnson, a search and interview to replace her were conducted without her knowledge.

The most recent resident musical director, Ben, has had it even worse. You may have heard that Ben requested a reduction in hours so that he could pursue outside projects. Not true. Not true at all. Here's what really happened:

Ben moved 1500 miles to accept this position last August. According to my sources, tensions arose very quickly when Ben realized that anything less than total sycophancy would be perceived by Yvonne A.K. Johnson as "dangerous," "combative," "aggressive," and "arrogant." She doesn't much care if your bootlicking is feigned, as that still indicates that she has been successful in controlling you, but if you lack the personal fortitude required to spend vast amounts of time worshipping at the altar of a narcissistic maniac, you are likely to find yourself in a bad spot.

There is little doubt, based on his abysmal 90-day evaluation, that Ben would have been terminated already if it wouldn't have looked so horrible for Civic from a PR perspective. After all, if Yvonne A.K. Johnson had hired two such fatally flawed candidates for this position, people would have to seriously question her character judgement. No...Civic could not and would not fire Ben. Instead, they would verbally abuse and threaten him into submission. Before the incident that triggered recent events, Ben was on the verge of quitting, unsure whether he could endure another day working with and for Yvonne A.K. Johnson.

Once again, Civic seized upon a minor incident in order to push out someone who failed to bestow the proper amount of adulation upon the dear leader. During the hiring process, Ben indicated to Yvonne A.K. Johnson that he had a sincere desire to do work with high school students when his schedule permitted. According to my sources, Ben actually has an email confirming that Yvonne A.K. Johnson agreed to this. When he arrived in town, however, the rules had changed. There was to be absolutely no moonlighting of any kind. Ben broke that rule. When the pianist for Lewis & Clark's production of Legally Blonde died - yes, DIED - Ben was asked to fill in on two Thursday evenings. Knowing that Johnson would never agree to allow this, he quietly cleared the conflict with Marianne McLaughlin, the director of Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. She excused him from those rehearsals and he was able to nobly fill the shoes of the deceased pianist so that local high school kids could put on their show.

So yes, Ben breached his contract by breaking a rule, but it should be noted that Yvonne A.K. Johnson appears to have breached their contract first - albeit a pre-contractual, verbal contract - when she changed the terms of his employment in a way that adversely affected his income and personal happiness. (I know what this is like: Johnson assured me repeatedly that I would immediately secure a church job paying $300-400 per week. In fact, the best church gig I could find paid about $100 per month.)

This minor act of [justifiable] insubordination set off a firestorm. After nearly 12 hours of meetings regarding this incident, Ben was told that he would need to sign a letter of resignation and accept a new contract. This new contract offered an hourly wage for any part-time work that Civic saw fit to hire him for. Gone would be his salary, benefits, and any sort of guarantee of work. They demanded that he sign this letter on the spot. Wisely, Ben declined and insisted that he would need some time to consider it.

He was given a deadline of Friday, December 23 - the day before Christmas weekend, mind you - to make his decision. The implication, of course, was that he would be terminated if he refused to sign. His friends and colleagues knew better. They knew that this new contract was clearly a way to push out yet another person that had proven to be unsurprisingly incompatible with Yvonne A.K. Johnson. They counseled him fiercely, encouraging him to maintain the strong position he was in. After all, it looked as if he would be losing his job one way or another. Refusing to sign would simply force Civic to fire him if they really wanted him gone, allowing him to file for unemployment and exposing Johnson's volatility once again.

Unfortunately, Ben had been pretty thoroughly defeated by this point. He was weakened to the point of exhaustion, physical symptoms, and mental and emotional anguish. He could not quite convince himself that he had any cards to play. He had begun to worry about his financial situation if he found himself stranded in Spokane without regular income or the means to move away so soon after moving here. Nevertheless, he tried to rally.

After being counseled and encouraged by friends and colleagues, Ben went in to Civic on December 23 at 1:00 feeling strong, ready to refuse their absurd demands. They kept him there for three hours. The determination of Civic to reach a deal is further evidence that they needed to reach a deal - that they could not fire him. In the end, some were informed that he had received "a good deal." What exactly that means is unclear, as a confidentiality agreement was included in the new contract, but one thing is clear: Ben was pressured to resign from the contract he moved here for - otherwise there would have been no new deal. This new contract certainly could not be better or equal to the original in terms of compensation, benefits, or job security. And so, whatever the status of Ben's new position at Civic, yet another person has been put through the wringer by Yvonne A.K. Johnson. Another person has been battered and broken by her utter disregard for anyone other than herself. Is anyone really surprised?

Not I

2012-01-12T15:16:00.000-07:00

Allow me to immediately put to rest the notion that I called the Best Little Whorehouse publishing house to "out" Civic for making changes to the show. While I do believe that Civic is hypocritical to do something that is technically illegal after terminating my employment for something they deemed immoral, I would not and did not rat out another person or institution for something that I do myself all the time. I had considered making a point of that hypocrisy on my page, but I absolutely did not contact the publishing house to report it.

I'm not saying that I am not enjoying this little bit of Karmic Scadenfreude, but I cannot take credit for it. On so many levels, Civic has endorsed just this sort of behavior. Yvonne A.K. Johnson called the publishing house for Always...Patsy Cline, in an attempt to pull the rights from a financially weakened Interplayers. Civic capitulated to the demands of an anonymous rat when they terminated my employment. As a prominent member of the local theater community just said to me moments ago, whether this was right or wrong, this is what Yvonne A.K. Johnson has done to this community. She has created an environment in which things like this happen. So pardon me if I don't feel too badly that it has happened to Civic. I do, on the other hand, feel badly for the performers and musicians that this will effect.

So...why should you believe me? I am clearly the most obvious culprit. Even I suspect myself. But is there really any doubt that if I HAD done this that I would be the first to boast about it? Have I ever made a move without immediately posting it to this page? I have not. In any event, I'm happy to take a polygraph, should anyone care to arrange for the administration of one.

I have a request: I would consider it a great favor if the person who DID call this in would discreetly and confidentially alert Troy Nickerson to that fact so that he can publicly confirm that I did not do this. Troy has assured me that it will remain at the highest level of confidentiality. This is merely to avoid tarnishing this movement, which has been growing in leaps and bounds in recent months.

One has to wonder who would have the motive to pin something like this on me? Who would stand to gain from the theater community turning away from me at this particular moment? Who is just Machiavellian enough to commit self-sabotage for the purpose of silencing her critics? Hmmm....

She Stands Alone

2012-01-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

Let's check the scoreboard: Last year I was hired as a musical director by a theater in Spokane. This month I am conducting a show for a theater in Coeur D'Alene. This summer I will musically direct the first show of the season at a large, professional theater in Coeur D'Alene. By my count, that completes the trifecta of major theaters in the region (other than Civic) that have hired me since my termination.

You have to ask yourself several questions. If all of these theaters have seen fit to hire him even after this fiasco, what in the hell was the big effing deal back when no one knew anything about this? Why is Civic being dragged through such a nightmare over what was obviously a calamitously horrible decision by Yvonne Ardyth Kovacevich Johnson? Why is Civic's reputation being tarnished on a daily basis at www.spokanecivictheatre.org and www.spokanecivictheater.org as a result of that decision? When will someone have the integrity and courage to put an end to it?

Your guesses are as good as mine. In the meantime...I'll see you at the theater(s)!

What I Found In Salem

2012-01-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

The Culprit

Well, ladies and gentlemen, here he is. On Friday, January 6, 2012, I flew to Portland and drove down to Salem to confront our attacker at long last. This is the individual we've been tracking down for the last fifteen months. I'm going to toot my own horn here a bit and say that only through sheer, unyielding determination and perseverance was I able to finally discover the identity of this individual. I could have given up many months ago, as some have suggested, but I know that I would have spent the rest of my life asking myself these questions: Why did this happen? Who would do such a thing? Will this person harm us in the future? Will this person harm other people?

I don't believe that I would have ever gotten a good night's sleep again without having had the opportunity to look into his eyes as I described the full extent of the damage he visited upon my family. I cannot go into this much further, as the investigation continues and litigation is pending now that we have obtained the necessary information. Someday, I hope to be able to tell the whole story to anyone who cares to hear it.

Yvonne A.K. Johnson

Sadly, the necessary information could have been obtained long ago, had Yvonne A.K. Johnson and Spokane Civic Theatre acted rationally and responsibly by immediately filing criminal charges with the appropriate law enforcement agencies. The anonymous email received by Civic threatened to reveal ill-gotten compromising information unless an implicit demand (our termination) was met. That is called blackmail. It is also known as extortion. It is a crime. Instead, Civic chose to throw its employees under the bus by capitulating to the disgusting individual you see above.

But here's what I did not know until my trip to Salem: Not only did Yvonne Ardyth Kovacevich Johnson decline to file the appropriate criminal complaint, she also refused to aid in the investigation. When I traced these emails back to a business in Salem, that company's IT Coordinator contacted Johnson and requested the header from the blackmail email. (The header is a bunch of technical gobbledygook that is buried in an email where you don't see it unless you go looking for it. It contains, among other things, virtual addresses for the sender and recipient. If you use Gmail, for example, you can see the header by clicking "show original" in the "more" menu in the upper right hand corner of a message.) Civic was the only recipient of the blackmail email. The header was a crucial component in properly investigating the origin of the email. Johnson refused to turn it over last summer.

But let's get back to the person in the picture. Much to my shock and horror, he was not only remorseless and combative, he even attempted to deflect blame by having the cojónes to cast judgment upon us. Only time will tell if he's an actual sociopath or just scared, humiliated and lashing out in desperation. Whatever the case may be, we will of course pursue any and all avenues of recourse. That having been said, I came away with a very unexpected pang of sympathy. This sick, pathetic old man could never in a million years have predicted the consequences of his actions. He could never have guessed that the leader of a civic institution - a theater, no less - would react so histrionically and create such a nightmare for everyone involved. In some ways, he appeared to be almost as shell-shocked as we were by the epic fallout.

Some crimes cannot be prevented. Consider a scenario in which a mentally ill person attacks someone in the street with a knife. There will either be someone nearby to intervene or there won't be. If there is not, the crime is tragic, but to a certain extent unpreventable. But what if the mentally ill person approached the butcher on that street and said "Excuse me, but may I please borrow that knife so that I might go into the street and stab that nice lady out there in the neck?" The butcher, I would argue, has a minimum obligation of preventing the mentally ill person from acquiring any kind of sharp object from his store. Most of us would probably say that he is further responsible for alerting the authorities and the nice lady in question. I think most people would be pretty appalled if the butcher said "I'm staying the hell out of this," and walked back into his office, locked the door and took a nap, leaving the knives, cleaver, meat tenderizer, and grinder accessible to the mentally ill person. In this case, the nice lady happened to be the butcher's employee and was, in fact, on her way into work when the butcher went into his office and locked the door. In which case, I would go so far as to argue that the butcher bears greater responsibility than the mentally ill attacker.

I am not justifying or excusing this man's actions at all. I am merely saying that a sick, pathetic old bastard should never have had the power to cause the damage that has occurred. No rational or responsible person would have ever granted him that power - but Yvonne Ardyth Kovacevich Johnson and Spokane Civic Theatre did just that when they capitulated to his blackmail demands. Instead of protecting their employees from the likes of this miserable waste of life, they ceded their power to him, did nothing to mitigate the effects of his crime, and actually refused to aid in his capture.

I am also saying this: Just as I never stopped pursuing justice in Salem, I will not stop pursuing justice in Spokane.

The truth is that Johnson's actions never really had anything to do with the person in that picture. The truth is that Johnson merely used this incredibly bizarre incident as a means of destroying yet another person with whom she found herself to be incompatible. As it turns out, I was merely the fifth of six music directors in a row to be unceremoniously disposed of in one way or another. My next post will detail the mind-boggling chain of music directors who have been fired, forced to resign, or otherwise tossed aside. I will present my theory about why music directors are such a source of misery for Johnson (though her people problems are certainly not limited to MDs).

Happy 2012!

2012-01-02T00:55:00.000-07:00

I have a very good feeling about 2012. I really do. There's just something in the air these days. The pressure is mounting and people are ready to push for a change that has been needed for a long, long time. Just to give you an idea of what I mean, take a look at the graph below. It charts the traffic to Civic Doody from its inception back in October of 2010 through December of 2011.

(That line represents the number of pageviews each month. So, for example, there were 241 in May and 1,037 in December.) Clearly folks are paying increased attention to what is going on at Civic. I must, however, give credit where credit is due: If it were not for the continued cooperation of Yvonne A.K. Johnson in protracting and aggravating our dispute, Civic Doody would not have experienced such tremendous growth!

So, what's next? Well...a benefit concert is in the works to raise the $2700 needed for Interplayers to secure the rights to Always...Patsy Cline. You can read the previous post to learn all about the Always...Patsy Cline Fund Drive that Patrick Treadway and I have launched for just that purpose. Donations are already coming in. Every little bit helps, so please get in touch with either Patrick or myself to make a pledge. You can reach me at civicdoodyspokane@gmail.com.

Also, while I continue to hold off on publishing a full report of some remarkable developments from December, I anticipate sharing at least some of the details in the not-too-distant future, after I've been able to further consult with some trusted and concerned parties. I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that it is a bit of a bombshell. So continue to stay tuned for that.

The ALWAYS....PATSY CLINE Fund

2011-12-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

The S#!t Is Hitting The Fan

2011-12-22T12:57:00.000-07:00

Major Shocker!

2011-12-12T11:33:00.001-07:00

Why I Persevere

2011-12-04T21:59:00.001-07:00

The first reason is one that might be difficult to understand and empathize with if you've been in Spokane for most of your life. Let me first say that Spokane is a perfectly delightful place, but it is also a place that we would never - ever - have chosen to relocate to for any reason other than the prospect of a stable job. Our families are thousands of miles away and our career prospects are nada, largely because Spokane is approximately 1/5th the size of the last city we lived in (Pittsburgh) and 1/15th the size of the city where I spent most of my professional life (Philadelphia). For us, the size of the city is relevant because of the extremely limited opportunity to continue our careers. By virtue of its size, Spokane is simply not a place where a person can make a living in the arts, which we had been doing for many years before we came here. Just to give you some perspective, our move from Pittsburgh to Spokane would be the equivalent of a Spokanite moving to Kokomo, Indiana (pop. 63,739). Now Kokomo, Indiana might be a perfectly delightful place as well, but just try to imagine yourself stranded 1,938 miles away in a very small town for no reason. (Libertyville, Illinois - pop. 22,700 - would the equivalent in the case of Philadelphia.)

So every day that we are stuck in Spokane - and we are very much stuck for the time being - is a day that the attack on our lives is ongoing. Every day that we are not doing with our lives what we came here to do is a day that our lives have been impacted by Yvonne A.K. Johnson's tragically bad judgment. Every day that we have to spend thousands of miles away from our friends, families, and careers is a loss for us. This will be true for at least the three-year term of my contract with Civic, which would not have ended until August of 2013. Sure, we can make the best of a bad situation, but it is still a bad situation. The injustice is not mitigated by the passage of time. Given all of this, I can see no reason why I could or should stop shouting from the rooftops. We are still being victimized by Civic on a daily basis.

Another motivating force behind my continued bitching and moaning is the interesting reaction I've gotten from various individuals and agencies. Over the course of the last year, in pursuit of the anonymous blackmailer, I have spoken with police, detectives, the FBI, the Marion County District Attorney's office, the Oregon Attorney General's office, private investigators, and countless lawyers. Every time I've spoken to someone new I have had to relay a condensed version of this incredibly convoluted story. Nearly every single person I've spoken with has had the same two-stage reaction. First, they say something to the effect of "Wow. That is incredibly bizarre. I've never heard anything like it before." Then they say "Wait...your employer fired you? Have you spoken to a lawyer about taking action against your employer?" I then explain that, yes, I have spoken to many lawyers and exhausted all of our options in that regard and that I don't really wish to revisit the matter. Several lawyers have actually tried to convince me to reconsider. I tell them that I am not willing to spend another nickel on that aspect, thereby ending the discussion.

I get this reaction regardless of the relevance of the employment issue to the person with whom I am speaking. I was especially stunned when the FBI agent from the Portland field office spent several minutes asking questions about that side of things before going on to discuss the federal laws the attacker might have violated. Just last week, the exact same thing happened in a discussion with the Oregon Attorney General's office. Without fail, people are more offended by the actions of Spokane Civic Theatre and Yvonne A.K. Johnson than they are by the deeds of the attacker. Everyone knows there are malicious lowlifes lurking out in the world, but they don't expect civic leaders to expedite the damage done by these miscreants. These are completely disinterested parties, expressing their objective thoughts on the matter. And so I feel both vindicated and encouraged in my sense that wrong was done and that others see the wrongness of it.

My final reason for continuing the fight might sound a little grandiose at first, but I trust you'll see my point in context. I recently watched Fair Game, the Sean Penn/Naomi Watts film about the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson incident in which a malicious outsider reveals confidential information that costs Valerie Plame her career. Her husband, Joe Wilson, crusades against the powers-that-be, refusing to be silenced or threatened. He doesn't appear to have a chance, but he never stops fighting. In the end, a measure of justice is obtained and the viewer thinks "Man...they fucked with the wrong guy."

While our provincial little situation certainly has nothing on the life-and-death details of the Plame incident, the basic outline is the same. To stop fighting before justice has been done is to encourage further injustice against others in the future. Perhaps someone else would have accepted this more docilely. I am not that person. Yvonne A.K. Johnson and Spokane Civic Theatre fucked with the wrong guy.

A Couple Things You Should Know

2011-11-14T13:42:00.001-07:00

The "Always...Patsy Cline" Fund

2011-11-06T11:23:00.001-07:00

As most of you already know, Interplayers came perilously close to dimming its lights and shutting its doors back in November. Generosity, determination, and extraordinary effort on the part of concerned parties prevented that from happening.

The closure of Interplayers would have been a terrible blow to Spokane's arts community. In order for theater artists to make anything resembling a living in theater requires a network of thriving venues cooperating as one arts community. In larger markets that have such a network, the not-for-profit theater community works together to ensure the survival and success of all involved. (While it might seem unlikely, these theaters don't think of themselves as competitors in the traditional sense. The real competition nowadays are the mass-market, commercially-produced touring shows. These shows bring their own actors, musicians, and stage crew to town for very short stays. Then they pick up and move elsewhere. For this, they charge more while providing minimal benefit to the community.)

Regional theaters benefit from a rich and diverse local talent pool from which to draw. The only way to cultivate that pool is by providing enough opportunities to keep the talent local. Without those opportunities to make some regular income, smaller cities experience a "talent drain" to cities like Seattle, Los Angeles, or New York. Those who remain are left to scrounge for opportunities to utilize their talents for little or no pay.

So it was especially sad to hear from multiple sources that another local institution began pecking at the dying remains of Interplayers before the death had even been confirmed, working to pull the rights to Always...Patsy Cline while the company was financially vulnerable but still trying to survive. While some were desperately striving to save Interplayers, others were apparently slinking about, canvassing the fire sale for trinkets they might want. In this case, it was the rights to a show that has been available for over a decade. In larger markets there is definitely some competition when it comes to securing rights to newly available shows. Always...Patsy Cline does not fall into that category. (In fact, Interplayers produced the show seven years ago. This was to be a revival in the newly created "Interplayers Classics" series.) There was no horde of competitors clamoring for the rights to this show in the event that Interplayers went under. So there was no justifiable reason for anyone to be prematurely dancing on the grave of a fellow arts organization.

In order to secure the advance rights to Always...Patsy Cline, Interplayers needs to pay a deposit of $2700 in the next few weeks. While the theater is recovering impressively, advance payment on rights for next season simply cannot be a high priority at the moment. That is why Patrick Treadway and I are raising funds specifically dedicated to this purpose. This will send a strong signal that this community will not stand for such pettiness and selfishness. We will support our treasured institutions in the face of adversity and refuse to let others take advantage of that adversity.

If you would like to donate, please make checks payable directly to Interplayers with "Patsy Cline" in the memo line. Checks can be delivered to Patrick Treadway or Jim Ryan. In the event that sufficient funds are not raised, all donations will be returned. (Or you can simply make a pledge which we'll only collect if the full amount is raised.) This is a great opportunity to squeeze in a tax deductible contribution before the end of the year! Please spread the word and help Interplayers bring back Always...Patsy Cline in its 32nd season!

Another Victory!

2011-11-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

[For the time being, I will be keeping this post at the top of the page, adding updates to the end of this post.]

Happy Birthday To Me

Wow. I really could not have asked for a better birthday gift than the one that just arrived in my email inbox. Despite what I believed to be an uphill battle against Civic's UDRP complaint against me, I have prevailed. Yvonne A.K. Johnson has officially flushed a minimum of $3000 down the toilet in an attempt to get something by force that I had previously offered for free. If this is not a sign of leadership gone horribly, terribly awry, I don't know what is. You can read the full text of the ruling from the National Arbitration Forum HERE. I will elaborate on this further in the coming days at any of the following sites:

http://www.spokanecivictheatre.org
http://www.spokanecivictheater.org
http://civicdoody.com

I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the board of directors is ultimately responsible for the actions of the executive. This is yet another blow to Civic's image and integrity brought about by the destructive reign of Yvonne A.K. Johnson. Only the board has the power to prevent further damage. Here they are:

President: Michael J. Muzatko 
Treasurer: Barry Jones
Vice President: Margot Ogden
Secretary: Erica Uyehara 
Member at Large: Wendy Klaue
 Directors: Curtis Anderson
Jason Coleman Heppler
Jennifer Ferch
Dan Griffith
Robert Mielbrecht
__________________________________________________________

UPDATE - 11/3/11 4:15pm

I should take a moment to clarify what the post below means for Civic. Because Ms. Johnson refused my offer to donate these domains to the theater, I remain the rightful owner of www.spokanecivictheater.org and www.spokanecivictheatre.org. My use of these domains for the purpose of criticism has been affirmed by the only body that governs these matters - and Civic's complaint's have been roundly rebuked. My site is now the second search result in a Google search of "spokane civic theatre" or "spokane civic theater." Furthermore, traffic is increasing and will continue to increase due to the fact that these decisions are widely cited and commented on by various publications and organizations. This ruling will undoubtedly be cited in future rulings. All of this will lead back to Civic Doody, reflecting very poorly on Spokane Civic Theatre. Again, this all could have been avoided if Ms. Johnson had not acted so irrationally. Then again, does anyone really expect anything different at this point? The best interests of Spokane Civic Theatre are taking a back seat to the ego of Yvonne A.K. Johnson as she attempts to justify and clean up the extraordinary mess that resulted from her extraordinarily bad decisions of last October. How much more damage will she be allowed to do?

______________________________________________________

UPDATE - 11/4/11

More Wasted Dollars?

A Google search for "Spokane Civic Theatre" turns up a vastly different set of results today than it did just a few months ago. The results are littered with third-party sites promoting or describing Civic. There is also an abundance of outdated articles and links that have risen from the depths of search engine obscurity. All of this suggests that Civic has employed the services a company like Reputation.com to help eliminate negative information by flooding the system with positive and/or neutral information. I can't be sure about this, of course, but the sheer volume of new profiles, links, websites, and such that have been created and boosted in the search engine ratings points pretty heavily in that direction. If this is the case, it indicates that even more funds have been dedicated to cleaning up this situation than the $3000 wasted on Civic's failed UDRP complaint against me. (See earlier posts for more information on this.)

Reputation.com, the most well-known of these services, lists fees that range from $3,000 - $15,000+ per year for businesses. Using that lowest figure of $3000, that would raise to $8,833.33 the minimum amount of money put to waste as a result of my termination. Also...who's running the theater while Yvonne A.K. Johnson is busy dealing with her mess? Maybe Thoroughly Modern Millie would have sold more tickets if she'd been more focused on that than on expensive, failed attempts to silence me...?

One Year Later

2011-10-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

I'm Not A Lawyer, But I Play One On TV

2011-10-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

Keep in mind, even if the domains are transferred, Civic Doody will remain at "civicdoody.com." The UDRP has no jurisdiction over Civic's other claims. Those would need to be addressed in a civil courtroom. This is a baffling turn of events, to say the least.

I have done all of the research and composed a nine-page response to their thirteen-page complaint. While I feel that the rules as they are currently written favor me, these panels have wide latitude to interpret the rules as they see fit. There is a well-known divergence of opinion among the panelists regarding the use of domains consisting of "Trademark.TLD" (TLD=Top-Level Domain, e.g. .com, .org, .net.) as opposed to "TrademarkSucks.TLD"-style domains for the sole purposes of critical commentary. The primary purpose of the policy, which you can read HERE, is to prevent the commercial misuse of domains. Non-commercial sites are broadly protected in the name of free speech.

So I figure I stand about a 50/50 chance of prevailing. More importantly, I don't care. I'm happy to turn the domains over. I've already offered on multiple occasions. On one level, I'd be relieved to have them out of my hands. I just can't understand why a non-profit arts organization is spending $2600 to POSSIBLY achieve something they could have had for free. I'm tempted to speculate that unmitigated ego is playing a role.

So let's tally the amount of money that has been wasted as a result of this entire incident. Civic provided me with a $3000 moving stipend with the stipulation that if I quit the position before the three-year term we agreed to, I would need to pay that back at a prorated amount. Obviously, I did not quit, so I was not obligated to return a penny. $3000 divided by 36 months is $83.33. My contract was terminated 34 months early. $83.33 multiplied by 34 is $2833.33. Add that to the $2600 spent on the UDRP complaint and you have $5433.33. That is the minimum amount of money that has been flushed down the drain in connection with my termination. If we could put a monetary value on the amount of time and energy that Civic's Executive Artistic Director has devoted to cleaning up her mess over the course of the last year (yes, it's been a year), that number would surely skyrocket.

UPDATE (and apology):

2011-08-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

Taking A Stand

2011-08-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Due to the extreme financial distress placed on my family by the actions of Yvonne A.K. Johnson and Spokane Civic Theatre, I have no choice but to represent myself in this matter. I beg your patience with my lack of legal expertise.

I would like to begin by saying that I take no pleasure in using the internet in this way. Unfortunately, Ms. Johnson legitimized the use of the internet as a weapon when she capitulated to the demands of an anonymous blackmailer and terminated my employment, along with my wife’s. In doing so, Civic became complicit in the internet attack that was waged against my family by an anonymous criminal. I am confident that I am legally and acceptably exercising my first amendment right of free speech in publicly protesting the fact that my family was needlessly and severely wronged by Spokane Civic Theatre.

The fact that these domains were available to be registered is one of the salient points that I am trying to make by pointing them to Civic Doody. It speaks directly to Ms. Johnson’s ignorance regarding matters of technology, especially in the realm of the internet. It was her profound lack of pertinent knowledge that precipitated her rash and unjust reaction to the blackmail demands of the anonymous emailer. A more technologically savvy executive would have a) previously registered all major web extensions of a mark that is as valuable as you claim it is, and b) been better equipped to comprehend and respond rationally to the events of last October.

Let us move on to the case law relevant to your claims. Even from my layman’s perspective, it is clear that in order for liability to attach under the Lanham Act or ACPA, there must be commercial activity taking place on my site or “bad faith intent to profit,” respectively. No such intent exists, as a cursory perusal of Civic Doody will demonstrate. See Bosley Medical Institute, Inc. v. Kremer, 403 F.3d 672, 74 USPQ2d 1280 (9th Cir. 2005).

The Lanham Act states that “Any person who shall, without the consent of the registrant - a) use in commerce any…registered mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services on or in connection with which such use is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive….” This largely speaks for itself, but allow me to provide some supporting legal precedent: In Taubman Co. v. Webfeats, 319 F.3d 770, 778 (6th Cir. 2003), the court found that “the domain name is a type of public expression, no different in scope than a billboard or a pulpit, and [the defendant] has a First Amendment right to express his opinion about [the plaintiff], and as long as his speech is not commercially misleading, the Lanham Act cannot be summoned to prevent it.” While the non-commercial nature of Civic Doody clearly renders irrelevant any confusion, initial or otherwise, on the part of web users, my site does not seek to promote confusion as to its source or sponsorship in any way.

That said, in order to ensure that this is even clearer than it was prior to receipt of your letter, I have taken the step of placing a highlighted notice at the top of the home page directing viewers to the official site of Spokane Civic Theatre, along with a list of upcoming productions and a link to Civic’s ticket purchasing site. As a show of good faith, I have also altered the background of Civic Doody so as to eliminate any resemblance whatsoever to Civic’s official site. (In all honesty, I had not even considered the resemblance until you pointed it out. I merely chose the red curtain from a list of templates as an appropriate background for a site related to theater.) See Lamparello v. Falwell, 420 F.3d 309 (4th Cir. 2005) for additional information regarding this aspect of your claim.

In another particularly relevant case, Lucas Nursery & Landscaping, Inc. v. Grosse, Civ. A. No. 01-73291 (E.D. Mich. Apr. 24, 2002), the court found that Michelle Grosse did not act in bad faith when she created the site www.lucasnursery.com to complain about Lucas Nursery and Landscaping because her non-commercial site was merely “informing fellow consumers of one’s experience with a particular service provider.” Again, “bad faith intent to profit,” is the crucial and lacking component in Civic’s claim.

The same court also explained: “The paradigmatic harm that the ACPA was enacted to eradicate – the practice of cybersquatters registering several hundred domain names in an effort to sell them to the legitimate owners of the mark – is simply not present in any of Grosse’s actions.” In other words, ACPA was designed to deal with cybersquatters, not cybergripers. I am, if ever there was one, a cybergriper and thus fully protected by the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

Regarding my anonymous registration, I have edited the domain registration details to reflect my true identity. When given a choice by the domain registrar 1and1.com, I chose “private” simply because that has become my default preference in all internet related matters, for reasons that should be obvious. Once again, the non-commercial nature of Civic Doody makes my anonymous registration a null point, but I have no desire to hide my association with the site. I thank you for pointing this out.

If you are aware of any case law bolstering your position with regard to these matters, I would be happy to review it and, if warranted, reconsider my position. Should Civic wish to pursue this further, I would welcome the opportunity to vindicate myself yet again.

On a personal note, I commend you for your association with Washington Lawyers for the Arts and appreciate the work you are doing on behalf of a non-profit arts organization. In this case, that institution happens to be in the wrong, but that does nothing to diminish your good works on behalf of artists everywhere. As a fellow theatre lover, I join you in hoping that Civic can soon regain and retain the respect and goodwill it has spent so many years earning.

So I sent that letter on Friday, August 12th. Then I spent the weekend reflecting upon matters and decided that I had made my point. On Monday, August 15, I sent an email to Civic's attorney with a simple proposal. I offered to turn over the domains immediately if Civic would simply stipulate in writing that it had been within my right to register and publish to them in the first place. This seemed like a fair and expeditious way to close the books on this particular chapter.

I received a response on Thursday, the 18th. It said that Civic was unable to accept my proposal and went on to make new allegations, including defamation, unlawful harassment, and cyberstalking(?!). Again, I did my research. Here is my latest response:

I write in response to your settlement proposal of August 18, 2001. I could not agree more with your assessment that there are many unresolved issues remaining between the parties, most of which have not been addressed in our correspondence thus far. For that reason, I am unable to accept your counter-proposal as it is currently written.

Turning first to your allegations of harassment and cyberstalking: As I am sure you know, the “course of conduct” required to constitute “unlawful harassment,” “does not include constitutionally protected free speech.” See RCW 10.14.020 (as amended in 2011). Civic Doody clearly serves a legitimate and lawful purpose. It certainly does not traffic in threats of any kind nor in any of the primary components of “cyberstalking.” As for a civic antiharassment protection order, there are not even any apropos orders available to the court under RCW 10.14.080, as your claim is a frivolous misapplication of the law’s intent.

If you are looking for a true case of cybercrime, you need turn only to the email that started all of this. RCW 9.61.260 says that “A person is guilty of cyberstalking if he or she, with intent to harass, intimidate, torment, or embarrass any other person, and under circumstances not constituting telephone harassment, makes an electronic communication to such other person or a third party: (a) Using any lewd, lascivious, indecent, or obscene words, images, or language, or suggesting the commission of any lewd or lascivious act.” If Ms. Johnson finds such actions as repellent as I do, she might well have demonstrated her principled fortitude by pursuing the anonymous blackmailer last October. Her present protestations ring hollow.

Regarding your claim of defamation, I would merely say that I am more than confident defending the absolute and demonstrable truthfulness of all statements of fact published on Civic Doody. Even if Ms. Johnson was not, in fact, a public figure, thereby eliminating the “actual malice” requirement, she would be unable to prove even the subjective falsity of anything on the site.

For these reasons, the content of Civic Doody is not up for discussion unless Civic wishes to work toward an amicable resolution of the circumstances that precipitated its existence. I have made it known on numerous occasions that I am open to binding mediation-arbitration, a process that would provide Civic an opportunity to demonstrate the righteousness of its actions, thus ending this episode entirely.

I remain open to any rebuttal you may wish to proffer regarding this or your prior letter. To date, I have not been provided with any additional legal rationale for your Lanham claim. It is always my wish to stay within the bounds of the law, so you can be assured that I would immediately surrender the domains if it could be demonstrated that I am, in fact, on the wrong side of the law. In the event that such information is not available, I would like to reiterate my offer to donate spokanecivictheatre.org and spokanecivictheater.org to Spokane Civic Theatre in exchange for a full release of any claims regarding the registration of and publication on those domains. Now, however, I must also require a full release from the claims made in your most recent letter, covering all material published on the site up to and including the date that such an agreement is effectuated.

I would like to say once again that I admire and appreciate the intentions that brought about your involvement with Civic. I have spent all of my adult life working in non-profit arts institutions. Judging from the paltry sums they are able to pay people like myself (just $30,000 annually at Civic, for example), I know that they can scarcely afford legal help when it is required. I benefited from the services of Pennsylvania Lawyers for the Arts years ago, when my work was being reproduced without my permission or compensation.

So please know that I am sincere when I thank you for your commitment to this cause. I regret having to take a contentious tone with an obviously decent person like you, but I am simply incapable of capitulating to a bully like Ms. Johnson. My family was not the first to encounter her coldness and cruelty, but I feel that I must do what little I can to ensure that we are the last.

So, just to be clear, I am more than willing to donate these domains to Civic, having already made the point I intended to make. All Civic has to do is sign a piece of paper releasing me from any liability by acknowledging that I was within my right to have them in the first place. This seems like a no-brainer if Civic's primary concern is, as the original cease and desist letter says, "simply to protect the reputation and goodwill it has spent over six decades building in the SPOKANE CIVIC THEATRE name and trademark." By declining this offer, Ms. Johnson has virtually ensured that these domains will remain in my possession, once again placing her own ego and malevolent desires ahead of the best interest of Spokane Civic Theatre. I hope that Civic will have the good sense to reconsider and end this matter quickly.

So what happens now? Well, Ms. Johnson certainly could waste valuable Civic time, energy, and resources trying to take me to court, while further increasing the visibility of Civic Doody, but if I was a betting man I would guess that this was a bluff, plain and simple. They probably assumed that little ol' me wouldn't have the legal wherewithal to figure this out and that the threat of a $100,000 fine would be enough to make me run for the hills. So my guess is that a big, fat nothing happens now...except maybe Ms. Johnson's head explodes with rage over my increasing number of victories over her attempts to bully me into submission and silence. She seems to honestly believe that her power extends outside the walls of her tiny little domain on N. Howard Street, wherein she reigns supreme. I'm here to tell her that it does not.

Professional Apples & Community Oranges

2011-07-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

Socrates:
Then we must begin again and ask, What is piety? That is an enquiry which I shall never be weary of pursuing as far as in me lies; and I entreat you not to scorn me, but to apply your mind to the utmost, and tell me the truth. For, if any man knows, you are he; and therefore I must detain you, like Proteus, until you tell. If you had not certainly known the nature of piety and impiety, I am confident that you would never...have run such a risk of doing wrong in the sight of the gods, and you would have had too much respect for the opinions of men. I am sure, therefore, that you know the nature of piety and impiety. Speak out then, my dear Euthyphro, and do not hide your knowledge.

Euthyphro:
Another time, Socrates; for I am in a hurry, and must go now.

-Plato's Euthyphro, 380 B.C.E.
I have never questioned Ms. Johnson's competence in leading Spokane Civic Theatre to marvelous success. It is worth noting that Napoleon also had a great deal of success prior to Waterloo. Nevertheless, Spokane Civic Theatre is thriving. That is why we came here in the first place. The prospect of a stable job outweighed the low pay and the fact that we would be leaving the professional scene for a community theater.

There has been a tendency to contrast Civic's success with the declining fortunes of theaters around the country. "How," everyone seems to wonder, "can a theater be doing so well in such an abysmal economy?!" I'll tell you how: By relying on volunteers to do the bulk of the work involved. Professional theaters, which are having a tremendously hard time these days, PAY their actors and stagehands a living wage according to Actor's Equity and IATSE contract regulations. Depending on the size of the theater, actors working under a LORT contract make anywhere from $566-$882 PER WEEK (as a minimum) - plus 8% pension and $155-165 per week for health care benefits. That applies during rehearsals and performances.

Even when you pay SOME performers, as was the case with BUDDY, the production costs don't come anywhere close to those of a professional production. Civic's musicians are paid about half of what would be considered a respectable wage in similar houses in other markets. They also do not receive fees for doubling (a percentage added when a musician plays more than one instrument, as reed players and percussionists often do). Add on the costs of SSDC directors and choreographers, along with IATSE stagehands and you have costs that are rapidly spiraling upward. (Just to give you an idea of what I mean - I have worked on single regional theatre shows for which the production budget exceeded the entire annual operating budget of Spokane Civic Theatre.)

Now, I happen to think that Civic's business model makes some sense for a small market like Spokane where it doesn't make sense for actors to try to make a living in theater. That said, financial success at a community theater is not, in any way, shape, or form, comparable to financial success in a professional setting. Civic gets all the benefits of functioning as the city's only big musical theater house, with a mere fraction of the associated costs. There are many failing businesses that could be turned around in a heartbeat if only the employees would agree to work for free!

So why, you might be wondering, was the theater doing so poorly prior to Ms. Johnson's arrival? Well even a highly advantageous business model like Civic's requires SOME degree of business and strategic acumen, which Ms. Johnson certainly has. Many theater boards make the mistake of thinking that artsy-fartsy types can run a theater by themselves. This is not true, under any circumstances. Bills need to be paid, costs need to be controlled, long-range plans need to be made. I know nothing about Civic's previous artistic director, but I would venture to guess that he lacked those critical skills.

So again, this is not to take anything away from what Ms. Johnson has accomplished. I am merely saying that her success is not quite what it appears at first glance. I am also saying that business and strategic acumen need not be accompanied by such severe and deleterious character flaws.

And now some thoughts about the future of Civic Doody...

Writing has long been an outlet for me, as you may have noticed. For that reason, I feel this page morphing into a general dialectic on a few topics that have become important to me as of late. They are:

a) the elusiveness of justice for those without the means to achieve it;
b) the draconian nature of at-will employment;
c) the complicity of decent people in letting bad people run things and hurt us all.

As you will see, these three topics apply to a wide range of situations that extend far beyond the circumstances that precipitated the creation of this blog. Let me give you an idea of where I'm going with each of these topics...

The Elusiveness of Justice: This is evident all around us. The first thing you may think of are sensationalistic instances of people who seem obviously guilty being set free - O.J. Simpson or Casey Anthony, for example. Everyday, however, people are victimized in much simpler ways and find that they have no recourse. There is a new HBO documentary called Hot Coffee that discusses the myth of "frivolous law suits." We found out first hand that it is very nearly impossible to file a legitimate lawsuit, let alone a frivolous one. I haven't had a chance to see the documentary yet, but I heard a great NPR interview with the creator. Here's a little teaser trailer from HBO:

Trailer

The Draconian Nature of At-Will Employment:
I must admit that this subject is new to me. I had never encountered it before and I intend to research the history, prevalence, and implications of its use. My first impression is that the concept of at-will employment presupposes that executives are benevolent and wise while employees are nothing more than potential trouble-makers. It creates an unduly unstable environment for employees who, regardless of the quality of their work, can have their lives overturned by the whims of their employers. We have been trained to think of the lazy, incompetent slob who cannot be fired because of union or legal protections, but which do you suppose is more common - that lazy, incompetent slob or the dedicated worker who simply runs afoul of an employer socially, politically, or through absolutely no fault of his or her own?

The complicity of decent people in letting bad people run things and hurt us all:
This is a big topic. It ranges from the re-election of George W. Bush to the collapse of the housing market, to the failure of the Spokane Civic Theatre community to do anything about a leader they know to be narcissistic, dictatorial, and malevolent. Those of us who have no aspirations to power often let the wrong people scratch, claw, and bite their way to the top simply because they're the only people who seem determined to get there. This makes a lot of sense, but it also comes back to bite us in the ass. I believe that we must, as a society, learn to recognize this sort of naked ambition for what it is - a thirst for power and personal glory that cares little for the best interests of the community at large.

That's it for now. Remember that I am no longer sending out alerts when I post, so if you think others should read this, please share it!

A Moral Victory

2011-07-05T15:13:00.001-07:00

The Theatre could have and still can go down in financial flames because of what you have done. All of our hard work could be lost to public scandal and the Theatre could dwindle into obscurity. That is what you have done…That is the magnitude of the potential harm.

Whether you are an actor, a staff member, a musician, a patron, or a board member, you now know that all of this could have been easily avoided by an honest and interpersonally competent executive. All of the drama, all of the negativity, all of the personal information you would rather have never learned – none of it had to become your problem. Ms. Johnson made it your problem.

If you are a board member, the offense is far greater. You have been lied to and misled into complicity with Ms. Johnson’s bad actions. It is now your civic duty to respond. As board members of a 501c3 non-profit, you are public servants, not Ms. Johnson’s. It is incumbent upon you to act in the best interest of the organization, not the individual.

The sad irony is that Yvonne A.K. Johnson could have avoided granting us this victory if her extraordinary intelligence had not been overwhelmed by her extreme maliciousness. This ruling is the result of her decision to fight my Washington State unemployment claim, which I filed in May, when my Pennsylvania benefits ran out. Washington found that I was eligible for $3378, paid out at the rate of $198 per week, for as long as I remained unemployed, eligible for work, and actively seeking work.

If Ms. Johnson had been acting in the best interest of Spokane Civic Theatre, she would not have contested this claim. (If my calculations and understanding of the system are correct, the absolute most that my claim will cost Civic is $202.68. That’s 6% of the amount I am eligible for.) In the course of fighting my claim, Ms. Johnson submitted false statements to the Unemployment Security Department, in the form of my official separation letter. She had not previously provided this document to anyone other than myself. She has now opened the theater to further charges of defamation, as well as to charges of making demonstrably false statements to a government agency, should Washington State wish to pursue that. She actually went out of her way to request additional time from the adjudicator, an indication that can only mean she put all of her best efforts into contesting my claim.

If Ms. Johnson had not been blinded by her determination to justify her mistakes, she would not have contested this claim, as in doing so she allowed for an adjudication of the circumstances surrounding my termination. That adjudication has shown, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she has been in the wrong all along.

I can only assume that Johnson will drag this out further by appealing this ruling. If she does, a hearing will take place, creating further opportunity for her to make false statements on the record, opening Civic to further liability. I hope she will, as I have no doubt as to what the outcome of that process would be and I welcome the opportunity to vindicate myself again. I will wait until her window of opportunity to appeal has passed before I forward a version of this letter to local media outlets.

Finally, when board members fail to exercise the duties they accept when they agree to sit on boards, they must be publicly held to account. This is Civic's Board of Directors:

President: Michael J. Muzatko
Treasurer: Barry Jones
Vice President: Margot Ogden
Secretary: Erica Uyehara
Member at Large: Wendy Klaue
Directors: Curtis Anderson, Jason Coleman Heppler, Jennifer Ferch, Daniel Griffith, Robert Mielbrecht

__________________________________

An update will be posted here in the coming days regarding the status of our search for the attacker. Sadly, the one thing we've learned is that our best chance at catching and prosecuting him would have been for the theater to have pressed blackmail charges immediately. As the theater was too busy firing and defaming us, that obviously did not happen. We are still working on it though...

An Open Letter to the Civic Theatre Community

2011-04-29T11:47:00.001-07:00

We hope this finds you all well. We haven’t updated you in a while because there simply has not been much to update you on. Now we can. Yes, this is a bit lengthy. For that, we apologize. We hope that you will take the time to read it, but we will understand if you don't. This is ultimately an exercise in catharsis and closure for us. That said, we think it contains important information that has implications for the entire Civic community.

The bottom line is this: Yvonne A.K. Johnson has made herself essentially untouchable. In addition to installing an impotent and pliable board of directors, she has insured her board against lawsuits, which means that when legal action is taken against the theater, the entire matter is turned over to a large insurance company and its corporate lawyers. The theater has nothing at stake in the matter and zero incentive to come to the table.

Our attorney drafted a letter detailing our claims: breach-of-contract, defamation, wrongful termination, and discrimination. (More on those later.) The insurance company’s response to this, in a nutshell, was “We know you can’t afford to take us to court, so please kindly go away.” They are correct. Taking them to court would cost approximately fifty thousand dollars. They are an insurance company. We are a family of low-wage artists that has already lost many thousands of dollars as a result of moving across the country to take and lose this job. (That, by the way, is the reason lawyers cannot take our case on contingency. Even if we won every one of our claims in court - and we believe that we would – the potential financial award, while life-alteringly significant to us, is too small from an attorney's perspective because we were making so little money in the first place. An attorney wouldn’t even be able to cover costs, let alone make any money. So, while we haven’t entirely ruled out pursuing this further at some point down the line, it’s just not possible at the moment.)

So what was this all really about? I think that’s the big question that has been looming over this whole fiasco. Let’s first discuss what it was not about. It certainly was not about morality, despite Johnson's official separation statement, in which she said that our lifestyle choices are “exclusively prurient and deserve no safe harbor.” In my separation letter, Johnson says that "The potential to offend the local community is the appropriate measure to guide our judgment." This is laughable given her selection of shows such as The Full Monty and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Furthermore, the Civic is home to all sorts of lifestyles and behaviors that might be found objectionable by any number of people, beginning with extramarital affairs between cast members and onstage drunkenness during performances - and those are just the obviously problematic examples. What if Spokane's audiences are potentially offended by homosexuality? (Most Spokanites that I've encountered, by the way, are more offended by the malicious invasion of our privacy and our employer's rash and unjust response than they are by any aspect of our private lives.)

Either way, who are Johnson & Co. to judge? Civic appears to be infringing on copyright law every time it allows performances to be recorded and distributed on DVD with the full knowledge and consent of the Executive Artistic Director. I researched this matter by emailing the agency that licenses BUDDY: The Musical to find out if they ever license the recording and distribution of performances. I was told by their licensing manager that they "only allow videotaping for promotional purposes (if the footage was to be used in commercials) or for the purpose of rehearsals, provided the tapes are destroyed on completion of the production. Unauthorised DVDs for sale or distribution are prohibited." More on the flagrant illegality of videotaping copyrighted productions here, here, here, and here.

We can only speculate about the actual motivations of Johnson and Muzatko. The simplest explanation is that they decided that I was not nearly as manipulable as they’d hoped I would be. Muzatko's petulant behavior after he was not cast in White Christmas - behavior that caused Johnson to consider asking him to step down from the board of directors - was an indication that I had not endeared myself to him when I failed to intervene in the casting decision. Also, Johnson almost certainly took notice that I was being socially drawn toward a crowd that she utterly despised and couldn’t say enough cruel and condescending things about. Aside from the fact that I just generally liked that crowd, I also felt that it was professionally important for me to ingratiate myself with the people with whom I would be working most closely and most often. The anonymous email presented Johnson and Muzatko with a very convenient opportunity to change their minds about hiring me.

And so, after fifteen years of musically directing theater, this episode has left me with no choice but to quit the business and return to school with the intention of transitioning into another line of work. We cannot afford to sell our house for less than we paid last August. We cannot afford to move back across the country. There are no similar positions in Spokane and not enough work to freelance for a living. Ironically, we considered Spokane's smallness a plus when we decided to move here. We wanted to get away from the ego-driven, rat-race mentality of larger cities. We could not have imagined that such epic megalomania would exist at a community theater in the 101^st largest city in America.

As much as I have enjoyed socializing and getting to know many of you at Charlie’s, it has also been painful to be around people who are rehearsing and performing in shows that I should be musically directing. The only thing that made that agony bearable was the hope that this would come to some kind of acceptable resolution. Now it is clear that there will be no such resolution. I am not egotistical enough to think that the loss of my Wednesday and/or Saturday-night company is some kind of great threat. I just don’t feel like explaining more than once why I am no longer around. Here's why: I don’t want to hear about auditions and rehearsals, see production meetings, or celebrate successful performances. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it hurts too much.

Now I must speak some truth. I do so not to be harsh, but because this letter needs to serve as closure for me and my family. It cannot serve that purpose unless I say what is really on my mind: Community theater exists as much for the expression of a community's talents as it does for the entertainment of that community's audiences. So I can't begrudge anyone who desperately needs an outlet for their artistic abilities, away from the grind of jobs and other responsibilities, even when doing so entails the betrayal of personal convictions. But you should also remember that this affects more than just the obvious victims. There are people who no longer have access to this invaluable civic outlet, either because their refusal to remain silent on this or some other matter has made them persona non grata at Civic or because they've chosen to stand firm on their principles and refuse to be party to such episodes.

Yvonne A.K. Johnson has an ironclad grip on your theater. Until you, as the community that comprises Spokane Civic Theater, are willing to stand up and take it back, episodes like this will continue to occur. Good people will continue to be alienated, defamed, fired, forced out, "blacklisted," or otherwise hurt by Yvonne A.K. Johnson’s behavior. The excellent work you do – as actors, directors, designers, volunteers, and so on – will continue to be undermined by a poisoned atmosphere – one of mistrust, fear, and animosity. The Civic is your theater. You are the Spokane Civic Theater, despite Yvonne A.K. Johnson’s attempts to take that credit for herself at every opportunity, with nearly every word she utters. You can either continue to enable and empower her to treat people this way or you can mobilize to end her malignant reign using the enormous leverage you have by virtue of your time, talent, and energy. It is more valuable than you think. She makes $76,000 per year (according to several sources) because you make nothing. She is exploiting you while demanding that you let her run roughshod over your notions of basic fairness and human decency.

I do not have any illusions that anything will change, but I must tell you that it is entirely in your hands now. We are done pursuing this. We have resigned ourselves to the substantial losses we've incurred and are moving ahead with our lives. I think it's very clear what I think you should do with this information, but I cannot and will not ask you to do it. I will, on the other hand, ask you one very important favor: Please don't let this happen to someone else in the future. Multiple people have told me that they had considered reaching out to warn me about Yvonne A.K. Johnson before I took this job and moved my family across the country. I wish they had. Please don't suppress that impulse if the opportunity ever arises again.

There's some more reading below, but for those of you who don't wish to to continue, thank you for your time and attention. We wish you all the best.

The Case We Can't Afford To Make:

Since we will probably not have the opportunity to air our grievances in court, we would like to share just a few of the key facts here.

1. My contract does, in fact, state that "employment is at-will." I failed to understand the meaning of "at will" employment status when I signed my contract. However, that same contract contract, along with multiple emails and conversations leading up to my hire, speak repeatedly of a three-year commitment. I took this to mean, as any reasonable person would, that I had a three-year contract. Therefore, my contract was self-contradictory and thus invalid. In such cases, the legal burden falls on the party that drafted the contract, which in this case was Civic. Prior agreements and understandings supersede in such cases. We believe those agreements and understandings are clear in various documents that are in our possession. We were planning on posting several emails, but realized that there are privacy issues involved. My contract, on the other hand, is yours to view:

2. Civic fired my wife without even the pretense of justification. The letter you'll see below essentially says that she was fired because she was married to me. This is a pretty clear violation of state marital-status discrimination laws. You can't fire someone because of the actions of their spouse. (See Magula vs. Benton Franklin Title Company, Supreme Court of Washington.) Bear in mind that my wife was never even interviewed or offered the chance to speak on her own behalf. She was simply assumed to be equally guilty (of whatever it was that I was guilty of) and was summarily dismissed.

3. While we will not show you the notorious anonymous email online, we will describe it. It begins with the implied demand "What kind of people do you employ ????? The attached photos and e-mail excerpts are outrageous. Do I need to go to a higher authority......or maybe the press. Megan Wilson." That is followed by a series of cut-and-pasted snippets of text, along with a handful of photos. Civic is never identified or associated in any way. There is no information about where any of this material came from. There is no way of verifying anything about anything contained in this email. This is the only material the theater has ever been in possession of regarding this matter. There was no investigation of any sort. It was only our honesty and forthrightness that verified some aspects of the email. We believed that truthfulness with our employer was the right course of action. Johnson has shown that dishonesty may, in fact, be the only way to protect yourself.

It is important for you to realize - for your own protection - that using Johnson's model of leadership, any information which comes into an employer's hands about you - regardless of the facts, regardless of how it was obtained, regardless of the motives of the information provider, regardless of whether or not it is actually about you at all - is grounds for termination.

This seems like a dangerous precedent to set. If an ex-spouse, jilted lover, or former friend has ever had access to personal information about you...look out. If there is anything on your hard drive that a computer hacker could steal and use against you...look out. If anyone has a motive to just make something up to hurt you...look out. A shoddy, cut-and-pasted together message from an anonymous sender is all it took for Yvonne A.K. Johnson to capitulate to the vague and irrational demands of a blackmailer.

4. Finally, let's talk about defamation. The Supreme Court of Washington (in Mohr. v. Grant KXLY TV) and the Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 3 (in Valdez-Zontek v. Eastmont School District) found that defamation can occur by insinuation and by the omission of material facts. Johnson & Muzatko left people with the impression that we were a danger to children when they told people that we had been terminated because it was their duty to "protect the children." Multiple individuals volunteered to testify to this. They repeated this on multiple occasions - over the phone, at a BUDDY cast meeting, and in private conversations with individuals at the theater. Incalculable damage is done when people cast such revolting aspersions about. We hope that we mitigated that damage to our family by quickly and vigorously working to make the truth known, but we cannot know for sure what anyone thinks or how we've been tarnished by Johnson's dark and vague allusions in the days immediately following our termination.

As we were driving across the country last August, Johnson frantically relayed information about two employees - a married couple - who were departing Civic under tense circumstances. Johnson said she had been "threatened" by the male and was frightened for her safety. This is a tactic she used again on the day that I was terminated, dramatically telling people that I had threatened her and that she feared for her life. (When later pressed on what exactly she meant by this, the only quote she could provide as evidence of this was that I had said "You're ruining our lives.") She also maligned the general mental and emotional disposition of the female.

Then, shortly after we arrived in Spokane, I was told by Johnson on numerous occasions about another employee who had recently left on bad terms. Johnson indicated that this individual had "not been the same" since undergoing surgery - insinuating that the former employee had become mentally unstable. I have since come to know this person, who is beloved in your community, and I can imagine no one more stable and strong. This is a pattern of behavior for Yvonne A.K. Johnson. It is dangerous and unacceptable. It should frighten and offend everyone.

And that, at long last, is all we have to say. Thank you again for your time.