The following is a direct quote (cut and pasted faithfully) from Jeff Kingsbury’s Facebook page. It is intended as a reference to accompany this story. Jeff did not return our phone calls, and this is the only record we have of his perspective on these events. Note to Jeff: Facebook is not private. I thought we already covered this, after that council meeting where you called a guy an idiot to your ‘friends’ on your ‘private’ Facebook page. Anyway, it looks like you’re trying to set the record straight, and we’re happy to help get your message out.
“So many people have asked what happened at the Playhouse. Many students have been kept in the dark and are unaware that I was fired. Almost daily I get questions about the summer shows. I was fired. I won’t be there.
Here’s a chronology of the last year or so. Some of it will seem unimportant, but will come clear as we get down the list. I’m numbering them so that I can reference previous numbers later. This is completely from MY perspective. This is for my friends eyes only. It is not intended to be public. I have included no names.
- October, 2009!! I ask the board for permission to seek 250,000.00 in 10 or less-7 year, 6 1/2% loans. This is to raise capital in order to ease cash flow problems. They approve the plan. Documented in board meeting minutes.
- I am able to get only one loan from outside my immediate family, who already had 150,000.00 in loans to the Playhouse, that we had been making regular payments to since 2004.
- I loan 25,000.00
- Business Manager loans 25,000.00
- My partner and I split. We had loaned money to retire an IRS obligation in 2006. He asked me to “buy him out” of our home, and to include the nearly 68,000.00 owed to him.
- I refinance my home and buy him out, transferring his Playhouse debt to myself.
- I pay the Washington Center 18,000.00 for the previous summer’s rental at SPSCC. I loan an additional amount, taking the total due me to 115,000.00
- We have a poor year of donations at the Playhouse in 2009 and 2010. But a record year of single ticket sales and season ticket purchases; particularly during the runs of RENT and ANNIE.
- We hold our “House Party” event in June, 2010. In 2009, this party raised nearly 30,000.00 in cash and pledges; our most successful. We anticipated the numbers would be down, and I budgeted only 20,000.00. This year we raise a shocking 4400.00!
- I call an emergency meeting of the board. We are going to have significant cash flow problems through the summer. I’m anticipating a loan from one or more board members to tide us over.
- The board panics (my assessment) and decides to do a nightly “ask” from the stage. I discourage this, but they are resolved. They also want to go public in the press, which I am able to get them not to do. No one wants to be involved with a sinking ship, I tell them.
- I cut the summer budget, while in progress, by nearly 40%
- We need nearly 100,000.00 just to keep us even through the summer.
- The ask raises about 57,000.00
- We are able to pay our bills for the summer and button up the season.
- Summer 2010 ends.
- Against my wishes, a board member who I consider dangerous is added. He had political problems with me, personally.
- September, 2010…We have some tech equipment turn up missing, and have a good idea who took it. A former employee. As a precaution, we have all of the locks changed in the building.
- I am exhausted, and owing to political issues in the community, feel paranoid and panic stricken when I am in public. I am so scared that I move out of my home and do not disclose where I am living. I am under a doctor’s care.
- I request a medical leave.
- The board approves my leave through the end of 2010. 2 months. THEY AGREE TO PAY ME THROUGHOUT MY LEAVE AND TO CONTINUE PAYMENTS ON THE 109,000.00 OUTSTANDING DEBT TO ME!
- I finish the run of INTO THE WOODS and take a directing job in Iowa.
- The board sends a press release to the Olympian, against my advice and wishes, and the paper ties the ill health of the Playhouse to my political choices…precisely what I told them would happen.
- While in Iowa, I began journaling. This was at the urging of the medical practitioner I was seeing. I was feeling MUCH better, and ready to return to work, refreshed.
- At this point, I HAVE RECEIVED NO PAY OR DEBT PAYMENTS SINCE MY DEPARTURE.
- Sometime during my leave, the board held a group meeting with the staff.
- My leave was extended for 3 additional months without my input. No reasons were given other than, “we want you to get better. Take your time.”
- A new managing director is retained.
- Three days prior to my return to Olympia, I receive notice from the chair that the locks in the building are changed, with staff citing suspected theft by previous employees! (see #18)
- I tell him we already did that and he acknowledges that he was “played” by some staffers, in an effort to make certain that I had no access!
- I start thinking something funny is going on.
- The first day I was back in town, another article appears in The Olympian touting the hiring of the new managing director. The acting Artistic Director tells the paper that I have damaged relationships with other theater companies in town, but that now they can work to restore good relations!
- A much loved board member resigns, contacting me to let me know that there were members of the board AND the new business manager that wanted me gone, but who were being duplicitous to me. I thanked her for her service.
- The business manager regularly contacts me for advice, having terminated the office manager, grant writer, costume designer, and choreographer. The acting Artistic Director proves unhelpful in ANY of the business dealings of the organization.
- I am repeatedly reassured by the business manager and the chair that all efforts are to make my return successful..
- The business manager and the acting Artistic Director decide to change the last show of the SIAB to FAME, THE MUSICAL. A mistake which I point out to the chair.
- I ask to have my leave extended through May since I can’t support this change.
- The board extends my leave.
- I meet individually or in pairs with each board member. I am encouraged to contact each staff member individually to make certain I am on good terms with each one. Except for the acting Artistic Director, who insists on mediation. The board will not tell me why.
- I write to each staff member and offer a meeting. I hear back ONLY from the marketing director, who invites me to a lovely dinner in her home.
- Decisions are made to change the Page to Stage production from BIG RIVER to GODSPELL. A mistake.
- The business manager accidentally includes my email address on a thread between the business manager and the board members wherein they are universally trashing me. A board member leads the charge on getting rid of me. He later accuses another board member of “leaking” their private communications. A mistake, but the other board member resigns after calling me to explain why. I thanked him for his service.
- I call the chair and discuss what I have seen. He assures me that all is well.
- I meet with the full board. I tell them that I have seen the thread and they assure me that they are ready for me to return to my post, in an advisory only position, with no one in charge. Then they will do a national search to replace me.
- They encourage me to write a letter for inclusion in the program of THE SECRET GARDEN. I write a note for inclusion that outlines my transition and praises the new team.
- The season ticket drive generates approximately 1/2 the revenues from last season, an unprecedented dip.
- Single ticket sales are reported to be off by 30%, with many subscribers not using their tickets at all out of dismay (based on the nearly 120 personal contacts I received, asking when I would return, and complaining about the quality of the shows in my absence.)
- Alarmed, I contact an attorney and have him draft a letter outlining the outstanding balances owed to myself and my mom.
- The board president sends me a 2 line dismissal letter VIA my mom, that states that April 8, 2011 was my last day, but that they would continue my salary through the end of May.
- The board sends a press release to the paper announcing my termination. And claiming that they are “out of the hot water” financially…in fact…”it’s great to have money in the bank finally” is quoted in the front page story of The Olympian.
- FAME sells poorly to date. Promised payments are not made.
- I receive a call and a text from the business manager asking me to participate in the 25th Anniversary KIK/KIDSATPLAY concert. He wants me to receive a proclamation from the City of Olympia, and to speak. As I can think of nothing nice to say, I don’t respond.
- I get a lump sum of 3 paychecks. I am still owed 3 with 3 more pay periods supposedly coming.
- My health insurance is canceled without notice, 30 days prior to the end of my “severance.”
- Summer shows are changed. The new SIAB season includes non musicals…not part of the Playhouse mission.
- Parents and students contact me repeatedly complaining about the summer and how they or their students are being treated.
- Word that the music director is publicly maligning me to students reaches me.
- I ask the board president to intervene. He refuses unless the parent who complained will self identify.
- A newsletter is sent telling the public that I “misled” the board throughout my tenure.
- The dangerous board member seizes control of the organization completely, and it is on tenuous ground, unless the information that is being relayed to me by the president is just to keep me from asking for the back pay that I am owed..
- July, 2011. The president informs me that they are 45,000.00 in the red, which is why they can’t pay me.
Throughout all of this process, a single board member has been “designated” to be the Public Relations person for the Playhouse. He has engaged in a media “tar and feathering” of me repeatedly. Including the newsletter (#58)
As I said in an earlier post, I was journaling beginning mid December on. These are all reflections based on my journal entries.”