Anthony McDonald, Associate House Manager, The Minskoff Theatre | ShowbizU x The Broadway League

Well, welcome everybody. Today we have Anthony McDonald, and we'll start first with Anthony. Please introduce yourself.

Well, hello everybody. My name is Anthony McDonald. I am currently the Associate House Manager at the Minskoff Theatre, home to Disney's The Lion King. I guess a little about my journey to get there was, uh, I grew up doing all forms of the arts. Instrumental, vocal, dance, musical theater, of course. I then went to Howard University in DC where I studied theater arts administration with a minor in business, getting a lot of stage management and tech production kind of training while I was there. But then I also realized that producing and kind of the, the management side of the business also really interested me. And so my junior summer, I interned for a couple different producers on Broadway. I was also a PA for a couple different shows off-Broadway as well. And it was there that I kind of really understood that producing and general management and company management and the sort were areas that I was really interested in. And so I ended up applying for the theater management and producing program at Columbia, University here in New York for their master's program, and then I got in. And it was there that I received some of the management training that I needed in order to kind of transition to where I'm at today, where I was able to join the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers, which is at PAM Union, that has both house managers, company managers, and press agents all under the same union. I joined them about 4 years ago now. And I've been working as a house manager ever since with the Nederlander Corporation.

The term house manager, can you give us a day-to-day, what does that mean in your role, please?

Well, it's a kind of big job. Our day-to-day, like I feel like most people in theater, differs every single day, but there are a few duties that we have to kind of get done every single week at some point. But I guess to begin, I find that house management is kind of a nexus between both the front of house, i.e., the patrons, the guests that come to our theater, and then also the back of the house, the production itself, the actors, the stagehands, everyone that works to put on a show. We technically, as house managers, we actually don't necessarily work for the show, but we work for the theater owner. They're the ones that actually employ us. And so we are basically the, the face for the theater owner at the theater each night. So we represent the theater owners, which in my case is the Nederlander Corporation. But on a day-to-day, what we first handle is the guests. Everyone that comes into our building, you know, we make sure that our theater is properly prepared, whether it's making sure the theater is clean and vacuumed, and making sure that our porters and cleaners have all the bathrooms ready, fully stocked with toilet paper and paper towel. But then it's also just making sure that the actual employees, the ushers, the ticket takers, the box office staff, the bag checkers, now our security that we have, 'cause we have metal detectors in our theater right now, which is kind of the wave for every theater coming on Broadway. We also make sure that they're all ready. That they all are dressed properly, that they're ready to greet our guests, that the customer service aspect is always held to a high standard, especially within a show like The Lion King where Disney itself has its own reputation for high-level customer service. We are part of that. As managers, we're the ones who are making sure that all of our staff members don't forget that aspect and are living up to that high level of customer service that we hope to provide every single night to every patron. When I'm not actively engaging with customers, we're then doing a lot of paperwork. We're doing all the payroll for the theater, for all the house employees. Once again, those ushers, the ticket takers, the porters and cleaners, the bag checkers, everybody that kind of is on the front of house staff. We make sure that they get paid properly every single week. We also do HR and personnel issues, whether it's hiring new employees or saying goodbye to other employees, whether they retire or anything of the sort. We kind of make sure that that gets processed accordingly. When it comes to fixing facility issues, that's another big part of our job is also maintaining the facility itself. So making sure that the different aspects of the facility, the HVAC systems, the plumbing, the restrooms, all those kind of aspects are always handled and maintained just so we don't have any major issues, you know, out of nowhere because we didn't do our part to make sure that those things are getting checked, those things are getting fixed, repaired, and the sort. And then we also, what we do at the end or the beginning, you could say, of each week is what we call the financial settlement, the kind of the wrapping up of all the finances for that week. So all the box office receipts that came in, we then pay all of our bills, we then pay all of our staff as far as checking the payroll. We're the ones that kind of puts together that document in order for the show to get their money from what they made that week and also for the theater owner to get their share of what they also made that week. So we also put together that humongous financial settlement every single week, which Tends to take about 3 to 4 hours, even when you've prepped it, to kind of get it right, just because it's such a big, important aspect of what we do. We don't want to make any mistakes on it.

When you first started the role and you saw the job description of everything, it had to be a little overwhelming. Who, who helped you navigate this world?

I had house managed other locations before I got to Broadway. So I had an idea of what I was getting myself into, what to expect. But Broadway is still Broadway, and they do it at a much bigger level than what I ever had done it at before. And so my first manager, Susan Martin, when I was at the Gershwin Theatre, was an integral part in kind of helping guide me along this, this path, because she had at that point been a house manager for about 9 years. Susan had also been the 306 rep, which is in many ways the person who kind of runs the organization as far as taking care of issues for their union members. So she had many former lives in the theater world before she became a manager, so she knew the theater in and out to where she was really able to kind of help guide me and help me along the way. In addition to that, the Nederlanders had a training program that I was a part of for about 5 months, I would say, before I was given an offer to become a house manager with the actual company. And so during those 5 months, I actually had went to every theater in their organization, worked with the different managers, learned from them different aspects of the job, got to experience and shadow them during their jobs and do some of the work with them in order to kind of wrap my mind around the all-encompassing job that it really is.

Can you share— you're, you're in a show that has a lot of moving parts going on. Can you share some of the challenges that you might face and what you do to overcome them?

Some of the challenges for our show, and I think one of the biggest, is that the first number for us is kind of the show. The Circle of Life. The processional that happens. The, the magnitude of that song. Is a big deal. And since we have the actors going throughout the audience, at a certain point we have to do a seating hold and we can't let anybody in the theater at a certain point once that first downbeat happens. And so for us as house managers, we're trying our best sometimes to get everybody in before we have to cut them off. Um, but the problem is at a certain point the show has to start, it has to begin. And so, you know, some guests of ours sometimes obviously are very perturbed and very upset that they're missing this number. So it's on us then to kind of alleviate their concerns. You know, it's an unfortunate situation, because we don't want anyone to miss it. We know it's kind of a humongous deal for the show. But it's then on us, like I said, to alleviate their concerns. We have monitors outside the theater to kind of still show them what's going on. Not to put any secrets out, but every once in a while, if I like a patron who's late, I'll let them stand in the back, you know, in a very particular spot where they're not in the way, just so they cannot miss it. So we try our best to help people out if we can, but it's not always possible. And it's sometimes just making, you know, telling them that we apologize. It's for the safety of both yourself and for our actors, and that we'll get you in as soon as the song is done. We'll get you right to your seat so you won't miss any more of the show.

We've covered a lot of the hard work and challenges that you do, but sometimes people forget the, the joy that we bring to the world. Can you share a story from backstage or with a guest that reminds you that this is why I do what I do?

There's a couple that come to mind. Uh, for an adult, I was subbing in for a colleague of mine at Hamilton, and It was funny that, you know, it was kind of in the beginning of the early days of Hamilton on Broadway, and so there was a lot of celebrities coming in to see the show. And one celebrity in mind that I knew of and that I kind of had admired had come in the door, but when she kind of realized this was really happening and that her significant other had surprised her for her birthday, she kind of squealed and was so excited because she was finally there and it was really happening. And you look at these other actors and you think, well, why are they so excited? I mean, this is what they do too. But it's the magic of theater that I think TV and film can't compare. That especially for a show like that, that the ticket was so hard to come by most times, the fact that it had happened for her, whether she was a celebrity or not, and her excitement and overjoy that was exuding from her, I thought was just so magical that You know, wow, we can even do this for other celebrities as well, that theater has that power still. But then also it's sometimes just seeing the kids, you know, for like a Lion King experience now, folks, and they hear that first sound come from Rafiki, and then they're just entranced the entire time. I think it's, for me, that's kind of what I love to see, um, that Once again, there's nothing kind of like live theater that can kind of take you and bring you into a world for the next 2, 2 and a half hours. And if we do our job right, all of us, not just the actors but the front of house staff as well, that you will really lose yourself into that world. And for us, it's changing these kids' lives for potentially for the future. You know, for me, it was my 6th grade is when I first saw my first Broadway show, which was Phantom of the Opera. And I think in general, a show like that with the magic that it also has in the show was something that changed my life. That is kind of why I'm here today. So I really do feel like theater can change, change lives, and we never quite know how it will change their life until they, you know, grow up, you know. And sometimes it'll just be as a theatergoer, they just appreciate theater. But other times it'll be that they realize that this is the kind of world that they want to be in, in the kind of life, life that they want to live.

I want to end with something very positive, which— share that moment, whether it be a show that you saw or something that you were in that said, wow, this is the world that I want to be part of.

I would have two different experiences. Phantom of the Opera definitely opened my eyes to the magic of theater and to Broadway itself. So I think that is what kind of started me on this journey. Then I would say probably my sophomore year of high school, I start as, I think, Billy in Anything Goes. And the fun that I was able to have with that part— I remember just really randomly that there was a part where Billy's in disguise and he's doing a Spanish accent, and for some reason I just could not at that point in my life do a Spanish accent. But my mother, and you know, my family's all from Jamaica, and so one day I was just in the chorus room just playing around doing my little Jamaican accent, and my teacher overheard and said, Anthony, you can do that pretty well. And I said, well, yeah, I'm Jamaican, what do you think? And so I was able to actually do a Jamaican accent for that scene instead and ad-lib a little bit for that part, for that one scene, to where once again, you know, having that freedom of being able to, you know, tap into a little comedy for that part and hear the audience laugh and have a good time with it was also a really fun moment for me to kind of say, man, it's kind of nice when you have an audience laughing at what you're doing. I would probably say the last experience was when I saw In the Heights for the first time. It was just a moment for me that, you know, I went there with some of my other Howard classmates 'cause we actually did a trip to New York and that was one of the shows we saw. It just was once again in a moment of like, wow. You know, I can remember after Fireworks happened, which is the closing number for the first act, And just kind of once the lights went up, just kind of thinking, you know, looking everywhere like, did you just see that? Like, wow. And just that overall feeling that that show conveyed and the dancing and seeing, you know, rap per se for the first time on, for me at least, on Broadway. It was just a feeling like, okay, this, this is something different that I feel really great about seeing, and I feel like I'm really lucky that I'm in this moment right now watching this, because I don't think I felt that way in a long time about theater. And that show just kind of, you could say, re-energized me to say, you know, this is really— I made the right decision in going and pursuing my education and all my experiences to be in this world, because there's theater like this that's happening that I find to be important.

Anthony, thank you so much for taking the time today. We, we wish you the best, a speedy and healthy and safe return. And for all of you watching, thank you very much. Please subscribe so you can see more videos like this in the future.