Bernie Moscovitz

It's easy to take potshots from the sidelines. I know it because I have done it myself on Ning. But Keith is right We put a notice out every single month with the date, time and place of our monthly Council meeting. We clearly state that it is open to anyone; members and non members alike. We put it on News.Boquete, the BCP Facebook Page; Boquete News and Ning and we get 0-3 people each time. Now, granted it can be boring.It's a Council meeting. We make momentous decisions about who's in charge of garbage or do we need to paint the parking lines red or yellow...But please, understand something; every single one of us is a volunteer. Nobody pays us. As people who've been here for as little as a year and as much as almost two decades, we have watched successive BCP Councils take all sorts of "slings and arrows". Some of it internal and full of awful, passive aggressive nonsense; but much of it external....anger and finger pointing and innuendo from a few people here and almost all of that has been delivered second-hand to Council members. Dealing with hearsay; hearing that people are deliberately not participating because they feel they were mistreated but never bothered to bring that to me or the Council, is just insane to try to deal with. Read Lee Zeltzer's overview of BCP in Boquete Guide. It's enlightening. Volunteers in this community have just rebuilt the stage. Volunteers are pouring a new slab and re-configuring our storage and dressing rooms. Volunteers are building new sets. Volunteers are hanging lighting..after a few days of little response, we now have, at last count, 15 volunteers coming out to auditions for "The Play that Goes Wrong". Those audition notices were placed all over town and on all social media sites we use. All kinds of people are working to make things better at BCP. Our Tuesday Market has grown; the new La Villa Cafe is succeeding, On our tenth Anniversary last summer we sold out our dinner dance and all performances. It's a choice: If you prefer sniping and anger. Fine. Those who need to do that; enjoy yourselves. If you have a grievance to air; a suggestion to make, some talent, some time, some heart and soul to contribute then please stand up and show up. You will be enormously welcome.

Responding briefly to the two posts above: 1) Phyllis. Your choice. I simply offer to help and the offer remains 2)Judy, beauty,ugliness, racism, love, hate ... whatever... are all in the eye of he beholder. I found some of your earlier language about cowards and dictators personally offensive since (I hope) I am neither but you can say whatever you like. That is your business. If you want to have a discussion about what offended people you will have to ask them; I don't speak for them. There was a confluence of reasons and what matters in the end is that production could not have been mounted without a Musical Director. I know that Squirt gets that. She said so in her email to all of you. She has replied to my reply to her in a cordial and helpful way.

You and several others are angry over auditions as I understand it. If you wish to discuss this with me and the Council I would welcome it. I won't have the conversation in a Forum and I won't have it in the street as it has been up until now. I am available at your convenience

This has been sent to Squirt;and posted where she posted. Dear Squirt You don’t know me. It’s clear you don’t. I have been the President of BCP since September and I wish you had taken a few seconds to ask any of the innumerable people to whom you sent your email how to reach me. I know most of them. Any of them would have given you my email address. But I know you… and I adore you and Mickey and Shel Silverstein. I know you because as I was considering BCP’s desire to have me on its new Council, I had a walk-on in Postcards. I carried a sign they made that said “Maldiccion” on it and I flashed it, actually wiggling off my butt, at the audience right before Universal Adjective was sung by Jim Wasson. If you knew me, you’d know I detest Political Correctness and I laughed through every rehearsal and performance. I have read your email with interest. Two friends on your list sent it to me. Then I saw your Campaign move to Ning and Chiriqui life so even though you have not addressed your efforts to the new Council or me, I am now responding in its name as I want everyone on your list to have a chance at understanding. Several people replied to your email and postings. Almost all in a clear and positive way but I will use a word from one of them who was less elegant: There is no “dictator: In fact, if there was anything close to dictating, it was that the Council before the one on which I now serve told us newcomers in July of 2015…in fact the words were spoken by then President Rhody Edwards in response to my question as to whether or not the Council would have any say in the choice of productions…and we were told, no, the new Artistic Director had been given sole discretion. We were asked to respect that. Which brings us to Fat Katz. You and all those addressed need to know that plans were afoot to do it. In fact, Barbara sent me the script and told me she’d hoped I would read at auditions to play Katz. I told her I would read only if Dave Ross did not want to reprise his role. Almost at the same time, she discovered that neither Rhody nor Yella could be available, and that scared the daylights out of all of us and you, Ms. James, more than acknowledge that in your email. Rhody tried to help us find another Musical Director. I even asked my sister in Montreal who is a great keyboardist and arranger if she’d come for three months but she told me she’d have lost her job. Nonetheless casting began (maybe whole bunches of you don’t know that either). Yes, casting began and within two days Barbara came to the Council and told us that some actors who were reading at auditions were offended by the script (don’t shoot the messenger) and did not want to go further. She did not want to direct the play and in a completely selfless and helpful way, she called others here who had directed here before and pleaded with them to direct the play. No-one accepted. My purpose here is not to argue PC. My purpose is to tell you that a combination of her discomfort with the actors’ feelings, her own discomfort with doing the play; coupled with the fact that there was no Musical Director to be found and no-one who would direct despite her attempts to find someone to replace herself, made her come to the Council and tell us she felt we had to cancel. Under all those circumstances and because she had been given that discretion by our predecessors on the Council, we voted to support the decision. We made our BCP Founders aware of the decision and while they both would have wanted the play go on, they supported Barbara and the Council in that decision. If we have a new Musical Director and a guest Director (our AD has already shown she support that) there will be every chance of us doing Fat Katz next season. I hope you will work with us on that.