“Lighting Designers, Electricians, and Theatre Companies - Do you use products from Apollo Design? If so, I urge you to reconsider. Read-on....
It has recently come to my attention that the CEO and owner of Apollo, Joel Nichols, has been using his public Facebook page to share and spread vile, hateful, pro-Trump, anti-woman, anti-LGBT, anti-PoC, anti-Union opinions and links. His main news sources seem to be Breitbart and Info-Wars. His posts were all public for the world to see until sometime over the last few days when, in response to the growing boycott of his business, he seems to have finally edited his privacy settings so we can't see his repulsive politics on full display. I am attaching here a sample of the 90 screenshots I took of his posts before he hid them. Some of the themes that appear multiple times:
- Joel frequently seems to be angry that black members of Congress and media personalities don't need to take IQ test. - Joel is very angry that we provide health care to transgender prisoners. - Joel is very scared of Muslims and thinks that the idea of moderate Islam is a myth. - Joel is very confused why women are wearing pussy hats and marching. - Joel is ready to condemn Michael Brown (the black 18-year old shot dead by police in Ferguson) as a "bully and a thief" and calls for his father to be arrested, but is "ashamed" by the fact that the officer who shot him had his career ruined.
Even flipping through these screenshots makes me very upset and the idea that I would be spending money at this man's business makes me nauseous. Many lighting designers have been calling Apollo to express their outrage and inform them that we will no longer be spec'ing Apollo products on shows or giving them out business in any way. I encourage you to do the same.
When I called, I spoke with Nick Picciuto, the CFO. Their main number is (260) 497-9191. He took my concerns very seriously and seemed to understand where I was coming from. He said he was going to discuss this with the owners of the company (Joel himself and his wife) and the rest of the team there and he took my contact info so he could get back to me if he had further questions or any updates he wanted to share.
Here is roughly what I said. I did not do this all as one monologue, and he asked some questions in between some of these points, but this is the gist:
Hi Nick.
My name is Jake DeGroot and I'm calling from New York City. I'm a freelance lighting designer who works here in New York on Broadway, off-Broadway, regionally, and around the world. I have been using Apollo products for the last 15 years.
It has recently come to my attention that your owner and CEO, Joel has been using his public Facebook page to post some really awful things including racist, misogynist, right-wing propaganda and fake news from Breitbart, Info-Wars, and other reprehensible sources. He critiques Hillary Clinton's clothing choices, asks why black members of Congress don't have to take IQ tests, and ridicules transgender prisoners for requesting health-care in prison. Reading his page made me want to vomit and I cannot in good conscience continue spec'ing Apollo products on future shows. I will be changing some upcoming orders and alerting all the theatre companies, electricians, and lighting designers in my circles to do the same. I know Apollo has a diversified business, but theatre is a major part of it and as you can imagine, members of the theatre community tend to be very opposed to Joel's brand of hatred and bigotry. I expect the screenshots I have taken of his Facebook page today will not go over well with many of my colleagues.”
Original Post: https://www.facebook.com/jdegroot/posts/10101342642670169