Play slowly makes its way to stage

Dave Brooks

With just seven days to go until opening night, 24-year-old

playwright Brett Voeller is developing a new anxiety to overshadow

the litany he already battles.

“I live in a constant state of fear and nervousness in Huntington

Beach right now,” he said while carefully driving down Magnolia

Avenue, his car brimming with promotional materials for his upcoming

play, “Who Shot Mayor McCheese?”

Just six days earlier, he received a letter from City

Administrator Penny Culbreth-Graft indicating the city might put the

kibosh on his 2 1/2 -hour musical epic highlighting the lives of

fastfood characters.

Voeller and co-writer Ryan Haley warn that despite the youthful

subject, “Who Shot Mayor McCheese” is not a kid’s meal. The racy play

morphs the lives of wholesome fastfood icons -- Ronald McDonald is an

adult film star, Jack in the Box is a drug-dealer and Colonel Sanders

is a racist plantation owner -- and loads up their trays with sexual

innuendos and off-color jokes.

“It works for a lot of stuff: Jesus, Santa Claus, Mickey Mouse,”

Haley said.

“Yeah, it’s kind of about the death of innocence,” Voeller said.

That concept, and a lack of proper paperwork and permits, almost

got them booted from the city-owned Huntington Beach Playhouse,

located at the Huntington Beach Library. But after a letter from a

lawyer, a special closed-session City Council meeting and a little

finagling, the group’s Dred Scott Productions was able to push

forward with the show, which begins at 8 p.m. tomorrow.

Named after an eighth-grade play Voeller wrote about the famous

slave who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom, Dred Scott Productions

is a small theater troupe of mostly Edison High School graduates who

first put out “Over the Top: LIVE!” a musical mockery of the

Sylvester Stallone movie about arm-wrestling.

After the success of that play in Costa Mesa, Dred Scott

Productions decided to shop its sophomore performance around local

playhouses. They didn’t get a very good response from theater owners.

“The library was the only one that bit,” Haley said. “Everyone

else treated us like idiots.”

Shortly after signing its contract to hold the performance at the

Huntington Beach Playhouse, Dred Scott hit some snags. A technician

at the theater assigned to do the lighting obtained a copy of the

script and alerted city officials about its content, which included

simulated sexual acts -- acts that Voeller said were so obviously

fake, no one would construe them as real.

After several phone conversations with library officials, Dred

Scott received the June 24 letter from Culbreth-Graft saying the

performance was in jeopardy.

Culbreth-Graft’s first concern was the group’s supposed nonprofit

status. Nonprofit groups get a much lower rate at the library than

businesses. When Voeller and Haley signed the contract, they said

they were intending to get nonprofit status before the play started,

but later determined they weren’t eligible. But the boys already

signed the contract, and the city had to give them the lower rate,

nonprofit status or not.

“We lost the opportunity to collect the full fees,” Culbreth-Graft

said.

The letter also explained that the boys needed to find a licensed

liquor provider if they planned to sell beer, which they do.

“I think you will enjoy the show more if you’ve had a few drinks,”

Haley said, adding that Dred Scott recently hired a caterer to sell

alcohol at the play.

The letter also warned that some of the play’s racier scenes could

be illegal under the city’s adult entertainment ordinance.

For Haley and Voeller, the letter was a bombshell, and they

considered calling it quits. Instead they said they decided to

“lawyer-up” and hired an attorney who sent the city a letter a day

later, arguing that blocking Dred Scott Productions from hosting the

play could be a violation of members’ civil rights.

On July 27, the City Council held a special closed session to

discuss the issue. Two days later, Voeller received a letter saying

the show would be allowed to go on.

Culbreth-Graft said she is not concerned with the content of the

play.

“We don’t check on content, and we can’t check on content,” she

said. “Content is none of our business.”

Just to be sure, Dred Scott Productions invited a Huntington Beach

Police detective to view a dress rehearsal of the play. In the

meantime, Voeller and Haley are scrambling around to get the play

ready on time. Whether its performing street theater to promote the

show to Huntington Beach bar-goers on Main Street or hammering out

set details with stage designer John Koukios of Pacific Coast

Entertainment, the boys said they dedicate about 60 hours per week to

the play, on top of their normal careers.

Voeller said he’s glad that the ordeal with the city is out of the

way, but he’s still a little paranoid.

“I’m not the kind of person that enjoys this kind of stuff, you

know, like confrontation,” he said. “I like to make people happy.”

Haley added that if viewers are offended by adult off-color humor,

then it’s best to avoid the performance.

“Don’t show up if this is not your thing because you’re not going

to like it,” he said. “We want you to be offended while you’re

laughing, not offended while you’re running out of the theater.”