On the mornings Anthony McDonald spent commuting to New Haven from Stamford before relocating to the home of The Shubert Theatre this summer, Joel Osteen’s voice filled his car.
Sometimes, wisdom imparted through the pastor’s sermon would make it into McDonald’s staff meetings.
“There’s a lot of prayer happening because I know I have something in front of me that can be an amazing thing if we can make it work,” McDonald says. “Man can only do so much. Sometimes you have to take a step back and just pray about it … and doors will open, things will change.”
When McDonald took the helm as executive director of The Shubert, it was March 2021. Those morning commutes led him to an empty, 1,600-seat theater because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was weird,” McDonald says. “I came from working on ‘Lion King’ on Broadway where we had shows eight times a week, six days a week, people always in the theater, to a theater where I saw a stage, but there was nothing for six months. So, it was strange having to adapt to that environment.”
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During his interview process, Ruby Melton recalls McDonald’s proposal to prioritize using the theater as a COVID vaccination site, calling it an “unusual, somewhat surprising priority of his.”
“We were in the midst of a COVID shutdown and the theater was dark. There was a skeleton staff,” says Melton, who is chair of Shubert’s board of directors. “Yet Anthony saw this as a way to reach out to the community and provide a service, unrelated to the business of running a theater.”
She says McDonald recognized the theater was “in an ideal location near multiple modes of transportation and that it had the infrastructure that could help with setting up the site and scheduling vaccinations.”
During that time, hundreds of New Haven residents were able to receive COVID-19 vaccines at the theater’s on-site, walk-up clinic.
“His first act as executive director was to reach out to the community, not with programming, but with a vital service,” Melton says.
‘Black greatness’
In the Shubert’s 107-year history of existence, McDonald is the first person of color to lead the institution. He is the proud son of Jamaican immigrants and a celebrated graduate of one of the most prestigious historically Black universities, Howard University.
Just as soon as McDonald graduated from Howard as a theater arts and administration major, he headed to Columbia University for a master’s of fine arts in theater management and producing. At 21, he was one of the youngest in the program.
“I wouldn’t have been in that room if I didn’t deserve to be in that room, if I hadn’t earned my spot in that room,” McDonald says. “I was comfortable with the fact that Howard, in many ways prepared me to be in that room.”
There is a certain je ne sais quoi that Howard graduates have about themselves. They create significant cultural currency. From Kwame Ture, Sean Combs (who now goes by just Diddy), and Chadwick Boseman, to Toni Morrison, Vashti Murphy McKenzie and Taraji P. Henson, it is undeniable that Howard graduates stand out, shift the atmosphere and carve out space for others, just as much as they carve space out for themselves.
McDonald has a deep reverence for his alma mater, and knows that he too is a part of the legacy of an institution that cultivates “Black greatness.”
Charles A. Coward, McDonald’s college advisor, remembers him as a student who knew exactly what he wanted and worked hard to achieve it.
“From the moment I met him, I knew he was a leader,” says Coward. He points to McDonald’s drive to secure funding for new seating in the school’s black box theater and organize a senior showcase as acts of innovation.
For about a decade, McDonald developed out of the spotlight, honing skills as he steadily added more experience to his track record through Broadway and off-Broadway shows. Each job — be it six-month stints as a general manager or associate general manager for theater productions, or two to three years as an associate manager of a theater — stood as an opportunity for McDonald to keep trying new things while learning the ins and outs of a very particular industry.
“He was filled with ideas and I am certain that he still is,” Coward says. “Anthony looks at the current state of things and puts his brain into overdrive to develop new ways of doing things.”
Increasing accessibility
For McDonald, new things at the Shubert encompass upgrading the physical infrastructure of the building, including new carpet and Wi-Fi.
He’s also installing new seats for the first time in over two decades. On those new seats will be QR codes that patrons can scan using their phones to view a digital program, order drinks ahead of intermission or learn about partner restaurants to head to after the show.
McDonald continues to think through what increasing accessibility looks like for aging patrons who can’t make it to the theater because of mobility issues, folks with limited income or those who are or may become immunocompromised, especially as the pandemic continues.
Under McDonald’s leadership, in less than two years, he’s also worked to revitalize the theater’s relationships with the community. Through a partnership with Jordan’s Furniture, he is bringing thousands of students from Title I schools to the theater for free shows.
He also wants to diversify the audience and make sure the community feels welcome at the Shubert.
McDonald has been working to get a sense of what theatergoers want for programming, and he is planning future performances accordingly, such as by adding more dance and jazz programs.
And as for the board of directors, it is no longer predominantly male and white in its make up. Before the board’s transformation, McDonald wrote to them, making a case for why the organization should sign the Arts for Anti-Racism pledge rolled out by the City of New Haven’s Division of Arts, Culture & Tourism, which challenges arts organizations to think beyond diversity abstractly or as a check-box item.
“He is transforming the profile … of a performing arts center with the stature and influence of the Shubert in the community, recognizing its responsibility to the community,” Melton says, “and recognizing an even bigger responsibility to ensure the organization is not only paying lip service to matters of equality, justice and equity, but also living that truth.”
When it comes to innovation, McDonald tends to think of it as an avenue for solving problems and expanding horizons.
“My definition of innovation would be somebody who is constantly trying to improve systems and ways of living in order to progress something forward,” McDonald says. “Looking at things from a different point of view, looking at things from a different angle and trying to improve it — that makes society or your life better.”
He adds: “It shouldn’t even be innovative to want to diversify because that’s something we should be doing anyway. We are not in the middle-of-nowhere America where it isn’t very diverse. When you are fortunate to be in a city like ours where the diversity is plentiful, it should be the goal to make it seamless, where it doesn’t seem like it’s pandering or doing something that’s just trying to check a box.”
For McDonald, diversity isn’t just about having people of different cultures, races and ages in the building, it’s about creating a culture that communicates that the Shubert is the community’s home for artistic thriving and belonging, consistently and without question.
“There should be a place within our community where they can see themselves on that stage because oftentimes it is those moments when you can bring kids (who are) in that 10- to 11-year-old time frame of their lives that you can change something in them that may not manifest until years later,” McDonald says. “There has to be a place that is inviting and where you can see your culture.”
For McDonald, that moment came when he went to see “Phantom of The Opera” when he was around the same age.
“It was definitely a musical that was a very big spectacle,” McDonald says. “Something happened and it made me want to continue being a part of that world of theater.”