Complaints continue to swirl around the "Live Conversation with John Cusack" event that was held Saturday night at the Akron Civic Theatre. But the disgruntled audience members are not complaining about Cusack, or his movie, or the venue. They are mad at the evening's moderator: Duji.

After about 1,700 people had watched a screening of "High Fidelity," Cusack's music-infused comedy from 2000, Duji, a co-host of "Rover's Morning Glory" on WMMS (100.7-FM), took the stage as host and moderator around 9:30. She proceeded to welcome Cusack for a Q&A, before turning it over to questions from the audience.

"She vamped for about three minutes, then he came out and it started to go bad quickly," said Aileen Gockowski of Stow, who was there with a friend. "People around me started shuffling in their seats and complaining out loud."

"Duji said things like, 'Oh, you worked with Catherine Zeta-Jones, she’s so hot!' " said Scott Heisel of Cleveland, who went with his wife.

"She said, ‘How much did you make on this movie?' Or she asked, 'Would you ever want to produce a movie?' Well, he produced 'High Fidelity,' the movie we had just seen! It just showed a total lack of preparation. Seeing someone crash and burn so hideously as an interviewer was a painful experience."

"We had a drink afterwards and everyone in the bar was talking about how awful it was," Heisel added. "We had a solidarity of misery."

His complaints were echoed by dozens of fans on Twitter and Reddit, who had less-than-generous things to say about the moderator.

Several said her performance and questions were cringe-worthy, that she was trying to make the night about her, that it seemed as if she was "reading Cusack's Wikipedia page to him line by line" and that they felt embarrassed on behalf of Akron and Northeast Ohio. (I reached out to Duji, the radio name of Susan Catanese, for comment, but she has not responded.)

For his part, Cusack tweeted later Saturday night, "Thanks for having me - Akron !!" In response to a compliment from a fan, he also tweeted, "Aww thanks - I wasn’t sure audience wanted to talk biography stuff - but rather just talk about anything - but moderator was nice sweet person - It was pretty funny when you booed her questions."

The event was part of an off-and-on national tour for Cusack that includes similar presentations of his other films, including "Say Anything" and "Grosse Pointe Blank."

Cusack told the Beacon Journal for a pre-show article that "questions usually range from highly intelligent to silly to ridiculous." He also said, "whatever people want to talk about, I'm cool with."

The Civic has presented similar movie events with William Shatner ("Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan") and John Cleese ("Monty Python and the Holy Grail"). The shows are produced by Mills Entertainment's Backlot Project.

Tickets were not cheap, ranging from $49.75 to $69.75, before fees. There were also VIP tickets for $150.

Heisel said he paid about $170 for his two tickets. Gockowski paid $129.45.

“If you had told me a week ago that I would walk out of an event — where I was in the same room as John Cusack — feeling disappointed and angry, I would have never believed you," Gockowski said. "I have loved him for decades."

After the outcry, the Civic has tried to make it up to folks by offering free tickets to future events.

"We don’t have a specific policy regarding make-goods," said Howard Parr, the Civic's executive director. "We deal with everything on a case-by-case basis. We talk to the people and try to understand what their concern was. Sometimes they just want to vent. Depending on the circumstances, we can say, 'Look, we’ve got this show coming up, and we could give you a couple of tickets for that.' "

Gockowski, who had also reached out to Mills Entertainment, said she has already received two free tickets to a future show. "It says a lot about the character of the Civic," she said.

"We talked to Mills and we said, depending on the circumstances, we could offer this, and they were happy for us to do that," Parr said. "But it wasn’t something that they asked us to do."

As for the selection of Duji as the moderator, Parr said, "Mills asked for suggestions and we made those, and different people were put up and they chose her."

Asked if there had ever been anything like this before, with so much vitriol aimed at a moderator, Parr, who has worked at the Civic for 20 years, said, "No."

Parr was in the Civic audience on Saturday. "I did not feel that it was as rough as clearly many people in the public felt," he said. "I was a little surprised by the level to which folks were concerned."

I have met and interviewed Duji in the past, and she was always friendly and helpful. She has spent years as a producer, news reader of "The Shizzy" and co-host with Rover and his morning crew.

Commenting on Duji's Cusack interview, Rover said on his Tuesday show, "I believe it was a complete abortion, an utter disaster."

Some audience members theorized that perhaps Duji's poor performance was a goof.

"I’m not convinced that Duji didn’t purposely botch it for the sake of the radio show," Heisel said. "Maybe she was playing her character from the show? Maybe she relished the role of being the antagonist for things to use on a morning radio show?"

You can contact the Civic through its Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/AkronCivic, or by calling 330-535-3179. Parr emphasized that all complaints will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

"We do 200 events a year," he said, "and sometimes things go sideways."



Clint O’Connor covers pop culture. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or coconnor@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClintOMovies.