The Alley Theatre, clearly feeling under siege this week with the abrupt departure of longtime artistic director Gregory Boyd and the ensuing allegations about a toxic environment involving bullying and butt pinching as reported by the Houston Chronicle, is not being particularly forthcoming with the media or public.
In an email sent out to "everyone" who's on the Alley's internal list Thursday afternoon (coincidentally Boyd's last official day on the job), the Alley Director of Marketing and Communications Rachel Applegate said she was re-sending the media policy established earlier in the season. In it, she says all contacts from an media source should be referred to her or in her absence to Whitney Spencer, the PR and Communications manager.
"If a post on social media warrants a response or contains confidential information, legal issues, financial information, personal patron information or offensive/negative content or commentary about the Alley Theatre, please inform Rachel Applegate immediately."
"Please do not offer information to media — even if you know the answer." Later on she instructs: "Don't provide information or opinions that you don't have the authority to provide" and "Don't respond to offensive or negative posts on social media."
This comes on top of a statement released by Pierpont Communications, a firm brought in by the Alley and known as a crisis manager, that announced that most unusual of actions whenever an organization has some explaining to do. They're forming a committee!
Pierpont statement
There now. Don't we all feel better?
