When The Phoenix Theatre Burned The House Down
The late Bryan Fonseca's playhouse once staged a show so controversial, police were stationed outside and a lawyer waited in the wings.
December 17, 2020
The 1996 staging of Love! Valour! Compassion! that prompted protests, but went on to become the Phoenix’s longest-running show.Photo courtesy of IUPUI University Library
When Ricardo Melendez looked out from his dressing room window on opening night of
Love! Valour! Compassion! at the Phoenix Theatre on February 15, 1996, he saw a line of people that stretched around the corner of the building, which was then a former church off Mass Ave. “I wasn’t sure if they were protesters, or people waiting to get in,” says Melendez, a star of the play—one of the city’s first with nudity.