Okay Theatre People,
The new Texas Star Theatre is about to shut its doors. Not due to money,
but due to a small, vocal "red state", conservative, religious right group
that is very organized. These censorship terrorists have mailed, emailed,
contacted, harassed, and have begun to break through the VIPs of Granbury
that support this theatre; either by serving on our Board of Directors, or
as writers and publishers in our papers, government officials, school board
members, merchant owners, or general audience members.
Their biggest complaint, among many, is that the new Texas Star Theatre is
promoting pornography, sex, bad language, vulgarities, obscenity, and
encouraging the demoralization of an old historic town. It all started with
the use of 'goddammit'. It was used on this stage for the first time in 30
years and has made Texas Star Theatre a target of their close minded,
racist, homophobic, right wing attitudes and these fuckers won't stop until
we have closed our theatre down and they have run us out of town.
Thomas Morrissey, I, and an incredible new staff have turned this dying
theatre around and have brought a new and broader audience (that has broken
box office records) to Granbury and our theatre. Since we have taken over
in June, we have had more people attend our shows than any other show in the
last three years. We have quadrupled our season subscribers. We have just
started turning a melodrama driven community theatre into a world class
regional theatre and for the first time; people under the age of 50 are
packing into our seats.
We opened our season with Gypsy (which have 4 'goddammits' in the script).
We followed our first musical with Grease (which was the highest attended
show in the last 3 years). Stars Over Texas, a musical revue of new music
was next and currently we are in the middle of a four week run of The Boys
Next Door.
The board of directors and local businesses have been bombarded with phone
calls and emails demanding that everyone in Granbury boycotts the Texas Star
Theatre. The ironic thing is that 80% of our audience is from out of town
and we will not be affected by a boycott. The board of directors is
concerned with our next show, the tamest of all musical theatre: I Love You,
You're Perfect, Now Change. The cast is here and we are in the middle of
rehearsals. Although this show ran for 3 years in Dallas, a mere 50 miles
from Granbury, the 'Christian Citizens' of Granbury demand that we shut our
theatre doors before the show opens on October 6th. This would cause many
people a staff of 15, actors, designers, directors, etc., to lose their jobs
and shrink the job market.
I ask you from one passionate theatre artist to another to please email the
list below (together or individually) and let them know you support our
cause. Express to them that the audience for theatre is diverse and larger
than the local Baptist church. Please let each one of them know what
theatre does on a larger scale, locally and nationally. We need your
support. Just one email to let the locals know that the tamest season of
shows was selected and never misconstrued as pornographic or that
misunderstood as sex on stage (which is clearly not happening in our
production of Grease).
PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL AND ASK EVERYONE AROUND THE COUNTRY AND AROUND THE WORLD TO HELP KEEP THIS THEATRE OPEN.
We here at Texas Star Theatre have worked to hard to have a theatre taken
away from us because of a small minority that likes to bully community
officials.
Texas Star Theatre will not be censored. We will not become another target.
I Love You, You're Perfect . . will not be silenced or sanitized. If we
allow this to happen with the mildest of shows how are we ever going to be
able to produce some great works in the future?
Thank you for your time.
Peace,
Stephen Bishop Seely
Associate Artistic Director
Texas Star Theatre
817-579-5529 ext. 2#
www.TexasStarTheatre.org
P.S. If you would like to learn more about what has been happening locally
since we arrived in Granbury, please check out Texas Star Theatre at
www.hcnews.com
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