Anonymous threatening texts that led to the cancellation of the Essex Community Players’ spring production of The Rocky Horror Show were sent by the production’s own musical director, police said.

The nonprofit theater company had reported that members of its team got threatening texts from anonymous numbers. Kenneth Grenier, 26, of Hyde Park, who received some of the threats, turned out to be the person responsible, police said.

Police discovered that the texts had been sent from phone numbers registered through a subscriber-based cellphone app at an IP address registered to Grenier’s home address. Grenier admitted he created an account and sent texts to himself so he could use personal safety concerns as a pretext to step away from the production “instead of the true reason of what he described as difficulties with the cast and crew,” Essex Police said in a statement.

Grenier was issued a citation to answer a misdemeanor charge of false reports to law enforcement authorities, police said. The case has been referred to the Chittenden County Community Justice Center for resolution.

The revelations stunned former cast member Jess Wisloski. Like other members of the troupe, Wisloski had high hopes for the raucous musical comedy with themes of sexual liberation and queer identity. They’d rehearsed for roughly 12 weeks and were disappointed when the board decided to cancel a few weeks before the April 17 opening.

“I am still reeling a little bit, but it solved a lot of the mysteries,” Wisloski said.

Seven Days previously reported that on March 30, Grenier and board member Holly Biracree received texts from somebody representing themselves as Billie Davis, senior vice president of amateur licensing and compliance at Concord Theatricals, the New York City company that licenses the show. The person threatened to pull the Players’ rights to the show if the role of Rocky was not recast with a male actor and if the script was not performed exactly as written.

Concord Theatricals confirmed to Seven Days in April that the texts were not from its staff.

The board called an emergency meeting and forwarded the messages to Essex Police, who began investigating. The next morning, members of the Players received another suspicious text.

“I’m part of the cast and I heard you guys went to the police. Well Patrick and Kenny need to go. They are weak human beings,” the message read.

According to Wisloski, when Patrick Cope, the show’s director, confronted the cast about the suspicious texts, no one confessed.

Then the board received a more ominous text. “Oh just you wait for rehearsal tonight. It’s coming and you deserve it,” the message read. That convinced the board and production team to cancel the show altogether.

Wisloski said she thinks the whole affair could have been avoided had Grenier simply communicated his frustrations with the rest of the group.

According to Wisloski, Grenier complained about members of the cast in a since-deleted Facebook post in a group for composers and music directors. A friend of a cast member who was also a member of the group took a screenshot and showed it to people in the production. Wisloski said Cope and others sat down with Grenier and told him they found the post disrespectful.

“He had a chance to make amends in a small-scale way, directly to our faces, and he had a real difficult time even genuinely apologizing in that setting,” Wisloski said. “I guess the easier solution is to create a fake attack on yourself.”

Seven Days previously reported that the Players incurred more than $11,500 in expenses that were never recouped through ticket sales and concessions.

The Players will be performing a new show in October: Crime and Punishment, A Comedy.