Police Say ‘Rocky Horror’ Director Sabotaged Own Production With Anonymous Threats

One musical director gave himself over to absolute … deception?The story of a local Vermont production of The Rocky Horror Show that was cancelled after members of the cast and crew received threatening text messages has reached an unexpected second act: According to the Essex Police Department, the play’s own musical director admitted to sending the texts to sabotage the production after an investigation connected them to his IP address.The investigation began when Kenneth Grenier, the show’s musical director, told police he had received threatening texts due to his involvement in the production. Other members of the team received similar texts. Some of the messages, which came from various sources, claimed to be from Rocky Horror’s licensing committee and were upset that the lead role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter had been gender swapped, while other correspondences were simply anonymous threats.The texts led to the cancellation of the production in April, per Seven Days, a Vermont-based local arts magazine. According to Seven Days, the texts warned that if the script wasn’t produced as written with a male lead actor, the company’s rights would be revoked. “Patrick and Kenny need to be gone,” one ominous text said, referencing Grenier and Patrick Cope, the show’s director.During casting in mid-December, Cope and executive producer Jane Healy set up a “gender-blind casting” process, and the entire cast ended up being either female, trans or nonbinary, per Seven Days.“With Rocky, I cast someone who is female-presenting and uses she/her pronouns,” Cope told Seven Days. “I wanted to make that character a girl. That didn’t seem like much of a controversial idea.”During the investigation, police say they discovered that the texts were sent from cell phone apps, each of which were registered to a number that matched Grenier’s. Grenier then, per the police statement, confessed that it had been him who sent the texts, hoping to be able to step awa