Donors rally after burglary at Las Vegas' Majestic theater; organizer calls response a ‘Christmas miracle’

Troy Heard calls it a “Christmas miracle.”

After finding his Arts District theater looted on Christmas day, Heard created a GoFundMe to replace around $10,000 of stolen equipment: computers, a soundboard, iPads and other musical gear.

Dozens of donors smashed the Majestic Repertory Theatre’s goal in under 24 hours.

“It’s not just one person giving $10,000. It’s a lot of people giving $5, giving $10. … Just to see hundreds of people come together for that,” he said, pausing as he got choked up. “It really gives me pause.”

Heard, the theater’s artistic director, first noticed the burglary early Wednesday after stopping by to wrap a gift he had gotten for the theater’s stage manager.

Once he pushed open the back door, which he remembers locking before the holiday, Heard’s “Spidey sense” went off.

“Walking in, everything seemed fine until I got to a place where we’ve got a bunch of lockers — all the locker doors are open,” he said. “And just bit by bit I see like, that’s out of place, that’s not right.”

Heard said he called Metro Police but they never showed up after hours of waiting. He told the Sun he’d be filing a report with Metro on Friday.

The burglary was similar to what other small businesses in the Arts District have recently dealt with, he added.

A hair salon just a few doors down from Majestic was ransacked this month and three other nearby small businesses have been burglarized this year, KLAS-TV reported.

The thefts have been targeted, Heard said, adding that he didn’t want the area to gain a bad reputation. Instead, he made an appeal to the robbers.

“We’re all small businesses, why are you trying to knock us over? For what, a few bucks?” he said. “I’m too tired of being angry right now, especially with everything that’s going on in the world and how things are headed. If you really need that money that bad, you could’ve gone to any of us and asked for help.”

As a nonprofit organization, the theater is used to relying on the public for financial help, but this year has been different.

In September, Majestic opened “Scream’d,” an (unauthorized) musical parody of the ’90s cult classic horror film “Scream.” On top of a pile of regional awards, “Scream’d” was a box office hit.

But with the theater’s next show, a production of “Cabaret,” only a couple of weeks away, Heard said the theater had to “go back to that well” and ask for the local community’s help. Donations didn’t just come from Las Vegas, however, they came from across the country.

“Those are people who followed us because of ‘Scream’d’ … who have never set foot here who give because they like the actors. They like the people they’ve encountered on social media,” Heard said. “That just now speaks to something larger than I can even fathom.”

When the fundraiser hit its initial $10,000 goal, Heard turned off donations. But after people started messaging him saying they wanted to donate anyway, he reopened the page. The GoFundMe had raised over $14,000 as of noon Friday.

Additional funding will go toward upgrades and development for the local theater, he wrote on the fundraiser’s page.

“Some people have an opinion of Las Vegas being this really down-and-dirty town that’s cold and unfeeling,” Heard said. “But then something like this happens and you see what a strong community it actually can be.”

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