Writing on the same page of the News Herald, publisher Dave Kucifer noted that while he’d neither seen nor read Angels in America, he also opposed the play on the grounds that it “deals with an alternative lifestyle foreign to Kilgore and the East Texas area.”
Word began to circulate around town. Churches passed along an excerpt from the play’s most graphic scene but failed to mention that Caldwell had already cut it. Faith Baptist Church updated the marquee in front of its chapel to read, “Say no way to the gay play at KC!” The rumors grew wilder by the day, with many folks hearing that nude college boys would be having sex onstage.
In Beebe’s opening salvo, he’d taken a personal swipe at the theater director: “One must wonder if Mr. Caldwell, himself, identifies with this character [closeted gay Mormon Joe Pitt].” The insinuation set off furious denunciations from a nationwide network of Shakespeare Festival friends and alumni in support of Caldwell, who had one adult son with his wife of several decades, Anna. Soon letters were pouring in to the area’s newspapers, by and large pitting local opposition—“You are indeed spitting in the face of the Lord by allowing this play to go on”—against outside support. As the uproar spilled beyond East Texas, journalists from across the state and nation descended on Kilgore.
Faith Baptist Church updated the marquee in front of its chapel to read, “Say no way to the gay play AT KC!” The rumors grew wilder by the day.
The media firestorm made me giddy. As a student journalist, I’d never come close to making a splash like this. And the fury only grew: The college was so deluged by phone calls, it installed an Angels in America hotline. More than 2,300 East Texans signed petitions protesting the play’s production. Although a couple of local clergymen eventually pushed back in media interviews, pleading for a ministry of love rather than denunciation, Kilgore First Baptist Church pastor Mark McClelland was emblematic of the righteous outrage sweeping across the Piney Woods. He told the Tyler Morning Telegraph that he felt like taking a bath after reading the play. “It was so dirty,” he said. The Houston Press reported that McClelland denounced the play from the pulpit and made copies of his anti-Angels sermon for sale. Politicians also jumped into the fray, with Kilgore’s mayor and Gregg County commissioners threatening to rescind funds they’d committed to Caldwell’s Shakespeare Festival. “As Christians, our freedoms are being infringed upon,” Mayor Joe T. Parker complained to the Dallas Morning News.