Published March 10, 2020
I am the former owner of a theater whose comedy career was ended in 2017. I was falsely accused by a stalker who was encouraged and used by a business competitor.
Page 4 — How a competing theater directly benefitted
Background
Mettlesome Comedy owner Ashley Melzer conspired with other former DSI employees and Grace Carnes, a former friend willing to share an untrue allegation of sexual assault. As a new business rival, Ashley Melzer weaponized an accusation she knew to be false made by someone she knew to be a stalker, leveraging a cultural moment, mental illness, fear, disgruntled performers, credulous local media, and just enough truth to destroy me and dismantle DSI.
The initial smear campaign began in Summer 2016 and was nurtured semi-secretly over the course of a year fueled by a story which was demonstrably false. The public campaign was scheduled to land like a bomb the day after the last group of performers left DSI to join Melzer's new company.
Comments on Facebook quickly turned into a collective defamation of character to end Zach Ward and drive justice for Grace Carnes. When DSI Comedy was forced to close, under the unbelievable pressure of what happened, Mettlesome Comedy was in position and ready to profit off the chaos.
I was canceled. A stalker became a hero. And Ashley Melzer saved comedy.
I cannot lie: It is hard to tell this story. The details feel deeply personal, uncomfortable and embarrassing, but I want to share the story of what happened as objectively as I can, backed up by the words and actions of the people involved. As much as possible, I have tried to let their own words — in the form of personal correspondence and public social media posts — speak for them. I want you to draw the conclusion you feel fits verifiable facts.
As much as possible, I have tried to mask the identities of people who communicated with me but who did not publicly comment on the story. Those who conspired to ruin me made no such consideration, and their texts, tweets and public comments are full of anonymous complaints and innuendo.
Comedy Saviors
Statements by Jack Reitz documented here are from a recorded conversation on September 5, 2016.
The entirety of the conversation between myself and Jack Reitz was recorded due to the severity of the rumors being circulated at the time by Ashley Melzer, Reitz, Paula Pazderka, Grace Carnes and others. Reitz was sent to meet with me by Melzer and Pazderka as a “core ally” of women in the community, according to the defamatory letter Melzer and Pazderka sent via email to the co-founders of Reductress on September 2, 2016.
Andrew Aghapour was present for this recorded conversation.
Aghapour indicated to me that Reitz’s comments during the conversation were duplicitous and felt overly tactical.
Aghapour was also the person to notify me when Grace Carnes (accuser) started promoting Mettlesome shows.
Let’s begin.
Ashley Melzer resigned from DSI in January 2016.
Melzer stated she was resigning as Associate Artistic Director because of an opportunity and job offer from Innovate Raleigh. She offered to remain on staff through the month of February to help produce on the 2016 NC Comedy Arts Fest. She also said she might still want to produce special projects for DSI.
Melzer was surreptitiously starting her new company while she served DSI Comedy as director of a Spring 2016 ensemble, which she herself had offered to do. This ensemble (Riot!) would become Mettlesome’s first improv team.
“Ashley wanted artistic ownership,” stated Mettlesome co-founder Jack Reitz. “She stopped wanting to do the projects that she didn’t feel she could have ownership over.”
When Melzer resigned as Associate Artistic Director she no longer had the same authority over DSI programming and casting that she had enjoyed when she was in an artistic leadership position. I believe this new lack of control led Ashley Melzer to reframe Zach Ward as a perpetrator of abuse and reframe herself as a victim, even though she had resigned from her job.
At first, she said she left to pursue that new job.
Then, in her initial reframing, she said her reason for resigning was because of “artistic differences over intellectual property rights” — a claim she made eight months later in her letter to Reductress (more on that later).
She then spread disinformation about Zach Ward and DSI. Divisions in the community were there to be exploited, and Melzer knew there were already tenuous relationships where wedges could be driven between individual performers. Melzer focused on casting and creative control, at first.
This entire crusade began as a disgruntled former employee's effort to hang up her shingle and start her own company.
ASHLEY MELZER’S PUBLIC COMMENTS STARTING SUMMER 2016 WERE INCONSISTENT WITH MY EXPERIENCE OF OUR PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP PRIOR TO HER LEAVING DSI.
Melzer scheduled her first Mettlesome event on the same night as DSI’s monthly indie improv showcase.
In Mettlesome’s Triangle Arts Award profile, INDY Week writes, “One of the first events Mettlesome staged was almost rained out. The show, in honor of local comedian Paula Pazderka, took place in Ashley Melzer and Jack Reitz's Durham garage, where they hung black shower curtains from the rafters.”
Those weren't just black shower curtains. They were designed to mock DSI's black set, complete with a mock logo like DSI's with a red slash through it.
This was July 2016.
The first Mettlesome event was presented “in honor” of Paula Pazderka. Why?
Because Pazderka had given Mettlesome a silver bullet.
In a conversation recorded on September 5, 2016 which included myself, Jack Reitz and Andrew Aghapour, Reitz states that Paula Pazderka had approached Ashley Melzer and himself with information that he said “upset her” — information about me that she wanted to discuss with them.
According to Jack Reitz, the ONLY specific story Pazderka shared with DSI’s new business competitors Mettlesome Comedy was that I had had, in his words, a "romantic relationship" with Grace Carnes.
One year later, Grace Carnes posted her account of the first time we slept together. Her false accusation was the only story of its kind.
Reitz was hesitant but he also shared that, in the conversation with Pazderka, Ashley Melzer added to the narrative of harassment with her own vague account of being uncomfortable and an almost kiss.
The story:
Ashley Melzer and I almost kissed.
Once.
That’s it. There was no physical contact. We never kissed. (Melzer confirms this in her letter to Reductress.)
This is the story of that night.
The first weekend of May 2014 was the opening of DSI’s new theater on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, NC. The work to fundraise, design, build and program a new space on that timeline was intense.
On the night of May 3, 2014, Melzer drove herself to my house after shows. She brought a bottle of champagne to celebrate our hard work.
Conversation shifted during the night and there was a moment, hours later, when Melzer told me she was glad I was no longer dating the woman I was seeing when we started working together in 2013, that I was “too good for her.”
I interpreted this as flirtation. We both paused. I slowly leaned in, but Melzer pulled back. She stayed close, but the message was clear and I did not persist. We never kissed. In fact, we never touched.
We both exhaled and Melzer said, “It’s complicated. You have a kid and I like my job.” And, that was that.
Melzer slept downstairs on the couch and had already left when I woke up the next morning.
Reitz explains that Melzer admitted that, soon thereafter, I told Melzer that ‘whatever was happening’ was going stop. Reitz confirmed, “Eventually you told her you were going to stop and that you did when you told her you were going to stop.” This was early June 2014.
There were multiple interactions over the month of May 2014 that felt ambiguous, what could be described as continued flirtation on both sides.
We made plans to have dinner outside of work to celebrate our first month of shows. In a final ambiguous moment, Melzer asked me to zip up her dress in a parking lot as we headed into a restaurant. I felt very uncomfortable.
I went home that night and decided that I would say something. I wanted to be transparent with a friend and someone whom I had come to trust. I initiated a conversation to be clear that I was not interested in anything beyond working together.
Four months later, Ashley Melzer, DSI associate artistic director, would start dating Jack Reitz, a DSI performer and faculty member who was junior to her, and over whose casting and performance time she had at least some control.
Melzer and I worked together for 2 more years. We collaborated on almost every aspect of running DSI, communicating daily and performing together on stage almost every week.
SO, looping back to Reitz's confrontation with me at DSI on September 5, 2016, he presented two specific charges to me:
Melzer's personal account of a quickly ended flirtation, an account that was inflammatory and misleading.
Pazderka's version of Grace Carnes' story, which she shared with Mettlesome, a story they had reason to believe was untrue.
Paula Pazderka had resigned from DSI in January 2016.
Melzer writes that Pazderka “quit [DSI] to concentrate on her family” in her letter to Reductress on September 3, 2016. In a heated exchange over text on February 24, 2016, Pazderka demanded that I acknowledge her personal reasons for resigning: “not doing a great job, financial strain, pressures from home”
Pazderka and I had a falling out after she left DSI.
I was disappointed she resigned. It was also the busiest time of year for DSI, and I was sad and overwhelmed at work. I needed to hire and bring aboard replacements for two key employees and did not yet have support to manage those changes.
Pazderka no longer had control over DSI after she resigned. It was a dramatic change for the theater. She had influenced almost every artistic and business decision at DSI for almost a decade, as a manager, director and through our personal friendship. That influence and control ended abruptly.
I kept my messages professional in order to move forward. I set clear personal boundaries. When I set boundaries, Paula Pazderka lashed out.
February 20, 2016
In February 2016, cases of sexual harassment at a well-known comedy theater in Los Angeles had been dominating the online conversations of improv and comedy groups on social media. Pazderka told me that in light of events in Los Angeles, she was concerned about other former DSI faculty members and urged me to finish our DSI code of conduct via text message a month after she resigned.
There was never a single indication that she was concerned about my professional conduct or personal relationships. This was 7 months after she encouraged me in emails to block Grace Carnes, and just 4 months before she would make the call to Jack Reitz and Ashley Melzer.
February 24, 2016
My public reaction to Pazderka's resignation and departure was silent acceptance.
I faced a lot of added work because of the decision and did not want to say anything I might regret.
Pazderka texts me that my reaction was “not healthy” and “emotionally charged,” asking that I acknowledge her reasons, “Take the situation as it is/was … Someone not doing a great job, financial strain, pressures from home.”
February 27, 2016
Pazderka tries to convince me that I am creating an abandonment scenario and refuses to acknowledge my desire to disengage. She tells me I am stupid and that I have only succeeded in making her angry. I did not engage. I saw no healthy way to do so. Her communication felt manipulative and abusive.
March 16, 2016
Pazderka forwards DSI-related voicemails. She’s suddenly positive. I had experienced this manic cycle from other people in the theater. I replied to acknowledge that I got the messages, but did not know how to address our previous interactions. This would be the last time I heard from her.
Sometime later that Paula Pazderka decided to reassert herself and began associating more closely with the founders of Mettlesome — a company that had already started to established itself as a DSI competitor.
In Pazderka’s own words from 2015, Pazderka described this kind of behavior as “Gone Girl” revenge.
The version of Grace Carnes' story that Pazderka shared gave Melzer and her new company an immediate competitive advantage over DSI. It offered junior performers who were in the dark an easy logic when trying to decide where to perform:
DSI IS UNSAFE.
ZACH WARD IS DANGEROUS.
JOIN METTLESOME.
Who could blame someone for taking the safe choice and going to Mettlesome?
No one wants to be unsafe, or to be seen and recognized publicly as supporting something someone else regards as unsafe.
Pazderka would become the first Mettlesome Lab! Director
Lab! Director seems like the Mettlesome Comedy equivalent of her role as DSI comedy school director. That means that less than a year after Paula Pazderka had resigned from DSI, she started doing virtually the same job for Ashley Melzer.
The Mettlesome Lab! curriculum still mirrors DSI.
Then, in a warped, fun-house mirror version of "yes, and," Pazderka added her own untrue story to the narrative.
Suddenly, more than 18 months after Pazderka had gone into labor, people started whispering that I had forced myself into Pazderka's delivery room during the birth of her child. That is false.
As relayed by Jack Reitz, “Paula [was] upset about the way that the birth of her child went down. I know that didn’t happen here at work. …From her point of view, she didn’t want you to be there.”
The story:
Pazderka called me on Thursday, January 1, 2015, and told me she felt she was going into labor.
Her husband was unable to drive. She asked me to drive her to the hospital. I drove to her house and picked her up. I helped her check-in. I met her doula.
When her mother-in-law arrived, I met her in the lobby so she would not get lost.
Paula texted me the birthing room number so that I would know where she was. While we waited, I worked in the waiting room.
The next morning she asked if I could take out her dogs and bring her husband to a doctor’s appointment. Whatever she asked, and whatever she said she needed, I did for my friend. When her mother-in-law asked me, as a non-family member, to leave the birthing room, I did.
PAULA PAZDERKA’S COMMENTS TO MELZER, REITZ AND OTHERS REGARDING THE BIRTH OF HER SON AND THE NATURE OF OUR FRIENDSHIP ARE INCONSISTENT WITH MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Ashley Melzer, Paula Pazderka and Grace Carnes told Vinny Valdivia and others false and misleading stories so that they would act on that information.
Because these stories were deployed in a vague, behind-the-scenes smear campaign, I was never allowed an opportunity to publicly address or defend myself against the rumors they were spreading.
The same month that Reitz was sent to meet with me as a "core ally" of women in the community, he and Ashley Melzer sent out an invite for a boy/girl sleep-over keg party they were hosting “at Jack’s parents house!”
The invite read Shots, Truth or Dare, Beer Sports.
This — I don't know what to call it: slumber party? kegger? pajama-clad professional retreat? — appeared to have been intentionally scheduled during our first annual DSI Alumni Weekend.
In our conversation on September 5, 2016, Reitz claimed that a Mettlesome show debut on Friday September 30 had not been scheduled to subvert our alumni weekend, but had been decided by the venue. This event, planned for Night 2 of the weekend, contradicts that narrative, unless the venue also dictated when they could play "truth or dare" and do "beer sports."
Why would Ashley and Paula stay silent?
Some friends have suggested to me that everything I have compiled supports a story I just want to be true.
They argue that if Mettlesome was so involved in orchestrating the takedown, why did Ashley Melzer, Paula Pazderka and Jack Reitz say nothing during the online take down and media coverage in Summer 2017?
Because staying silent most effectively furthered their goals.
Why would leadership involve themselves in the firefight? Melzer, Pazderka and Reitz did not involve themselves directly in the social media frenzy of Summer 2017, nor did any of them speak on record to the press.
Why didn't they? Why didn't they speak to the press publicly? They would have been in the best position to confirm or deny the stories being spread about. These were two former employees, manager and artistic director, and a former leading cast member.
Ashley Melzer, Paula Pazderka and Jack Reitz could have cast doubt on Carnes’ story.
They had all worked upstairs at DSI and they could all say, with absolute certainty that, for instance, there had never been a ping pong table at DSI. Pazderka could tell reporters of her initial concerns about Carnes' stability and dangerousness, that she herself suggested I block Grace Carnes in 2015. Reitz himself, as heard on the audio recording, could testify that Pazderka told him the relationship between me and Carnes was a “romantic relationship.”
But why would they? Why put out the fire when you stand to benefit from the ashes?
It’s my belief that Mettlesome orchestrated a year-long smear campaign, Ashley Melzer and Paula Pazderka held Valdivia until the end of the DSI season, and sat back as the events played out.
Melzer connected INDY Week contacts and WUNC with intervention specialist Gail Stern as an industry expert to validate the moral panic about Zach Ward, Pazderka and Reitz connected Valdivia with DSI alum he would not have known, and Carnes was used as a weapon.
Their hands were clean.
Once the damage was done and the dust had cleared, Mettlesome announced an “Allies in Comedy” assembly, meant to support and unite the Triangle comedy scene, earning public credit for fixing a scandal they had fueled in the first place.
This event featured Gail Stern — a documented Mettlesome associate and Reitz's employer — and guest speakers from Minneapolis and North Carolina, speakers who had been convinced that they were “punching up” and helping the community heal. This event was announced within weeks of DSI closing.
According to the Triangle Arts Award profile in INDY Week, “Mettlesome's core team is too humble to say they're here to save local comedy, even though they probably are.”
At the very least, if you ignore everything presented here, Melzer, Pazderka and Reitz appear to be opportunists who just happened to look the other way while other people — people to whom they were socially and professionally connected, and who connected them together — performed a takedown they themselves attempted and failed to do in 2016, and from which they stood to be the greatest direct beneficiaries.
And it truly was all about eliminating competition — any competition, DSI or otherwise.
Months later, Melzer showed her true colors when she and INDY Week (a publication for whom Melzer has continued to write about comedy, as recently as November 2019) came after the next comedy theater to raise its flag in Chapel Hill.
To be clear: I am not associated with The PIT, nor do I have any information about what concerns people may have raised, but here Melzer appears to target yet another business competitor.
The absolute language used by INDY Week and Ashley Melzer perpetuate hearsay as “truth.” They tried to take down The PIT, too, and Mettlesome actively discouraged performers from performing there.
One last thing.
I sent this message to Ashley Melzer, Paula Pazderka and Jack Reitz on October 23, 2016.
My message was an olive branch, sent after everything they had done to personally sabotage me that Summer and 8 months before Mettlesome rang the bell on Facebook.
None of the recipients ever replied.
I started DSI Comedy when I was 22 years old.
I learned everything about running a comedy theater on the job, while running a comedy theater.
There was no roadmap for DSI.
I’ve struggled to provide for myself and my son since a group of people barely out of college deployed an internet mob in an effort to destroy my ability to do so.
DSI always had a guiding light, to create work that was accessible to all audiences and to provide a safe space for anyone who wanted to learn how to play. The company shifted and grew as I learned more about myself, about leadership and about running an arts business. But DSI never lost focus.
If you are struggling with your mental health and suicidal thoughts, please pick up the phone and dial 988 — Trained crisis counselors are available 24/7/365. If you’re outside of the US, please click here for a list of international hotlines.