Producers are canceling shows at Playhouse Merced after an out-of-control board meeting ended last week with police sending people home.
The primary conflict surrounds a growing rift on the community theater’s board of directors. The board majority attempted to remove its president and her allies, who in turn allege racism. Plus, the two sides can’t agree on which bylaws to follow.
Longtime Playhouse supporters said the fracas at the board meeting is not what they have known and loved about Merced’s local theater community.
“It’s cold. It’s hostile. It doesn’t feel like home. Even when I’ve been back in, just to go to shows, I don’t feel it anymore,” said Debbie Bennett, an actor who attended the meeting. “And it’s sad… that those memories are tarnished by the behavior of certain people.”
Opened in 1994, the theater hosts performances throughout the year and offers youth outreach programs.
Three shows have been pulled from Playhouse Merced after the verbal altercation between board members and community members at the September board meeting, according to Emily McSwain, who works the box office.
McSwain said she refunded nine tickets for “Perennial Players,” which was scheduled to start next Friday, and four tickets for “Phantasm In the Footlights.” “Holiday Follies” previously was advertised to play this winter.
The page to purchase tickets on the Playhouse Merced website displayed no available events at the time of publication.
Board meeting spirals out of control, ends with police presence
Simmering tensions boiled over during the evening gathering when the split board couldn’t agree whether to move forward with the regularly-scheduled board meeting.
Just minutes into the 6:30 p.m. meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 10, Playhouse Merced’s board president Sheilah Brooks asked the 50 attendees to leave and called to adjourn the meeting. Discourse erupted between board members and the public.
One bloc of the board, including secretary Samuel Yniguez and board members Debbie Bier, Brooke Gutierrez and Stacie Guzman, informed attendees to remain for the monthly board meeting.
The other bloc, which includes board president Brooks, treasurer Lynn White and board member Carolina Meraz, advised the public to leave. Brooks called any meeting moving forward “unauthorized” and “illegal.”
The agenda pushed by the board majority included a resolution to confirm the automatic removal of Brooks, White and Meraz.
While Brooks warned the crowd they were trespassing, a number of people announced they would hold “an actual board meeting.”
The public ignored Brooks’ message, and she lost control of the meeting.
At this point, Brooks’ husband, Allen Brooks, stood up from his chair to defend her. Allen Brooks is an elected trustee for Merced City School District’s board of education.
“She’s the president!” Allen Brooks said, repeating himself 10 times. He also added: “I’m the president of the NAACP.”
Former Merced City Councilmember Bertha Perez stood alongside Allen Brooks and engaged in a heated exchange with the crowd.
“Look at all the white privilege in the room,” Perez yelled, waving her finger at the crowd in front of her. “Look at all the white privilege in the damn room. F— you guys.”
Hearing that expletive, multiple children were quickly escorted out of the room as the yelling continued. Sheilah Brooks again warned the crowd of trespassing. When other board members initiated public comment, Brooks accused them of violating bylaws.
When one woman read a statement for public comment, Allen Brooks interrupted her and began livestreaming the meeting on Facebook.
“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” he yelled, pacing in the front of the room.
Some attendees sat silently in shock, watching everything unfold in front of them.
Six Merced police officers responded to Playhouse Merced after receiving reports of a disturbance, according to the incident report obtained by The Merced FOCUS. The report noted the scene had “heavy verbal.”
Current board leadership division and internal strife
For months, board members have been divided over how to sustain the organization’s financial health, according to previous reporting by Merced County Times.
In June 2024, the board announced the termination of former artistic director, G.B. Blackmon III, via an Instagram post. Based on the social media comments, the community was disappointed by the announcement.
A few months later, in the fall of 2024, Samuel Yniguez stepped into his role as board secretary.
Disagreements between board members, and the decision to terminate Blackmon, damaged the theater’s reputation and relationship with the larger arts community, Yniguez told The Merced FOCUS in an interview.
Before Yniguez joined, the board was functioning with two board members – president Sheilah Brooks and treasurer Lynn White. They both reached out to Yniguez to join the board because of his experience in public relations, he said.
“They knew I had a (public relations) background, and so obviously, Playhouse has had PR issues for a while, and they thought that I could help out in that field,” said Yniguez, who is also the director of public relations at UC Merced.
A year later, the collaborative spirit between board members has deteriorated.
A week before the recent September board meeting, Yniguez sent a termination letter to Brooks, White and Meraz. According to the letter obtained by The FOCUS, the three board members did not attend three special meetings, effectively ending their terms.
In these meetings, Yniguez said he hoped to discuss timely issues, such as pending production contracts and the organizational budget.
“It was getting to the point where these contracts and these time-sensitive issues needed to get done,” Yniguez said.
Meanwhile, Brooks called the raucous meeting a distraction from the mission of Playhouse Merced, which she said is where the focus should be.
“They tried to silence my voice and my authority as board president, and those are things that I do not stand for. I don’t care who it is,” Brooks said.
She believes her leadership is under scrutiny because she is a Black woman disrupting a culture of favoritism in Merced’s theater community, Brooks said.
“I believe in equity, fairness and respectful treatment of others,” she told The FOCUS, adding that her treatment at last week’s board meeting was unfair.
How is Playhouse Merced governed?
The internal dispute playing out between current board members primarily rests on the organization’s bylaws.
One set of bylaws, signed and approved in March 2019, state any board member who misses three consecutive meetings is subject to automatic termination. Exceptions include an approved leave of absence, illness, and reinstatement by a board majority.
Brooks, White and Meraz all missed three consecutive meetings, according to Yniguez, who provided The FOCUS with a copy of the organization’s 2019 bylaws. He believes the document is the most recent set of bylaws, he said.
Brooks, on the other hand, told The Merced FOCUS there is an updated version of the bylaws. However, she declined to share a copy or explain how they differ from the 2019 bylaws, despite multiple requests from The FOCUS.
“Unfortunately our bylaws are internal governance documents intended for use by our board, members, and regulatory agencies,” Brooks said in an email.
Yniguez told The FOCUS he has requested the current bylaws and was directed by Brooks to the 2019 bylaws. He said he was not made aware of any other new bylaws.
In a nonprofit organization such as Playhouse Merced, bylaws are most important for internal governance, though they are not necessarily a public document, CalNonprofits CEO Geoff Green said.
It’s not uncommon for nonprofit organizations to have internal disagreements, Green explained. Nonprofits are essentially public organizations – meaning there can be a number of disagreements regarding the organization’s adapting vision, or even direction of funds.
“When it’s a nonprofit, it’s really held by the public, essentially, and so fights can get tough,” Green said.
What Playhouse Merced means to the theater community
Many community members felt shocked and disappointed after last Wednesday’s board meeting.
Bennett, the actor, said she couldn’t stop shaking in the hours following the meeting. In her 14 years with Playhouse Merced, she’s been an actor, a dancer and stage manager. Many people showed up to the meeting in support of the board majority, she said, but it was shocking how the meeting turned out.
While police officers spoke to board members privately in another room, box office associate Emily McSwain told The FOCUS she had never witnessed a board meeting like the one that unfolded Wednesday.
Like many other actors, dancers and singers in Merced, Playhouse Merced was McSwain’s introduction into the performing arts industry. Now 33, she started auditioning and performing for plays on stage when she was 8 years old.
McSwain agreed with the sentiment, adding the board and theater community have grappled with an unsteady relationship for a while.
“The community does not support the three that have been kicked off, and it’s been a problem for about a couple years now,” McSwain said.
As for Brooks, she feels the outcome of the meeting was symbolic of larger community divisions that have existed in Merced for years.
“I just feel like nobody wins in situations like that, and for me, that makes me just feel marginalized in this community, and less than,” Brooks said.
Playhouse Merced’s board of directors meets every second Wednesday of the month, unless otherwise specified. The next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 8.
