On March 30, Grenier and a board member received messages from someone claiming to be Billie Davis, Concord’s senior vice president of amateur licensing and compliance. The messages threatened to revoke the theatre’s performance rights unless Rocky was recast with a male actor and the script was performed exactly as written. Concord later confirmed that the messages hadn’t come from anyone at the company.
Another message declared that “Patrick and Kenny need to be gone.”
After the production team contacted police, another anonymous message claimed to be from a cast member. It said that director Patrick Cope and Grenier were “weak human beings.” Cope then confronted the cast and asked whether anyone knew who was responsible. No one confessed, and performers were understandably offended that one of them was apparently being accused.
The final message warned, “Oh just you wait for rehearsal tonight. It’s coming, and you deserve it.”
That was enough. The board and production team decided they couldn’t guarantee everyone’s safety and canceled the show.
According to former cast member Jess Wisloski, Grenier had previously complained about people involved with the show in a Facebook group for composers and music directors. Someone captured the since-deleted post and showed it to members of the production. Grenier was confronted and given an opportunity to address the situation directly. Wisloski said he struggled to offer a genuine apology.
What makes this story so infuriating to me is that Grenier apparently had another option available to him the entire time.
He could have quit. Instead, police say Grenier created a fake safety crisis because he didn’t want to have that conversation.
I keep thinking about the cast members who spent 12 weeks rehearsing this show. Then they were suddenly told that someone within their own company might be sending threats. Everyone was left wondering whether they would even be safe at rehearsal.
All of it was allegedly manufactured by someone who was supposed to help lead them.
That’s the part I can’t get past.
I hope Essex Community Players pursues every legal avenue available to recover its losses. And I hope every producer, director, and theatre board remembers his name when another résumé comes across their desk.
In my opinion, Kenneth Grenier should never be hired to work on another theatrical production again.
Police say he frightened his colleagues, implicated innocent people, and destroyed months of their work because telling the truth would have been uncomfortable.
That should end his career in theatre.
