Interview: Bryce McDonald Comes Home to Cumberland County Playhouse

Should you ask Bryce McDonald to point out the year of his life in which it was changed - irrevocably, to be sure, but most certainly, for the better - chances are he would have difficulty in pinning down the most significant time in his life. He might select 1984, the year he first attended a show at Cumberland County Playhouse (it was Annie), or 1996 when he first stepped onto the CCP stage as a young man (in Oliver!) or it might be 1999, when he first began to train as a stage manager at the iconic Crossville theater (again, it was Annie) that has become "home" for countless theater artists over the years.

Perhaps he would claim 2006, when he left the relative comfort and security of his home state - far from the friends and family who have supported and cheered him on from birth - to make the move to New York City, where he hoped to broaden his theatrical horizons and to learn everything possible in order to be more knowledgeable about what makes theater - no matter where it's presented - successful, engaging, enlightening and informative

The smart money, however, is on 2016: On January 1, McDonald (a 2013 First Night Star Award winner) took over the reins as producing director and CEO of Cumberland County Playhouse, succeeding 2013 First Night Honoree Jim Crabtree as the leader of the theater company that has thrived under the guidance of the Crabtree family since 1963 (even though McDonald was not yet born, obviously that's another important year in The Bryce McDonald Story, my working title for the Broadway musical to be based upon the amazing dramatic arc of his life).

Talking to McDonald after his most recent CCP board meeting, he admitted something that - coming from anyone else - might be hard to believe and too cute by half: "I can't stop smiling," he said. "We just finished another great board meeting."

With the unbridled support of his board of directors, McDonald's leadership of "Tennessee's Family Theater" is something that he may have been destined for since that first time more than 30 years ago that he sat in one of the theater's seats watching Annie. As a fourth grader (maybe even before that, in all likelihood), the always-in-motion and constantly performing Bryce McDonald knew he wanted a career in theater and, like most youngsters of his ilk and inclination, he would watch the Tony Awards on TV, dreaming of being there, or soaking up the latest show tunes from the most popular shows on Broadway, thanks to the cast albums given as Christmas gifts from his Uncle Raymond.

And for the boy whom his mother claims "has never met a stranger," the die was cast: Bryce McDonald's theatrical life, which is an amazing tale of living by the golden rule and seizing every possible opportunity to learn his craft should give hope to every small-town dreamer who aspires to something bigger, more fulfilling and exponentially more exhilarating.

"The first time going to the Playhouse in 1984, with my school group from Overton County to see Annie," he recalls, "to me, it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Do you know what I mean? To me it was Broadway, it was everything I'd ever seen on PBS, all the award shows I watched on TV that made me dream of being there myself."

So, it probably came as no surprise to his parents that when he finally got his driver's license at age 16, he told his dad that he "didn't care if he couldn't drive to school every day," so long as he had permission to drive from Overton County to Cumberland County on weekends to see all the shows at The Playhouse. Bryce McDonald had been bitten by the theater bug in fourth grade and the impact of seeing the magic of live theater come to vivid life onstage only made him long to experience that amazing transformation for himself, on a regular and continuing basis.

At the age of 18, during his first year at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, he had the opportunity to work with Abby Crabtree at Cookeville Children's Theatre (in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), which prompted him to volunteer at CCP the following summer. At the end of that initial sojourn in Crossville, Abby Crabtree asked if he wanted to return the following summer for an internship.

In 1997 (yet another important year in his career development track), McDonald took dance classes -he'd always been dancing while growing up, performing his original shows for family and friends at the McDonald family home in Monroe, Tennessee ("I put shows on in the living room; I danced for my mama; Uncle Raymond kept giving me cast albums for Christmas...the new hot shows on Broadway...he would tell me about going to NYC or Toronto for theater...if it was a church play, I wanted to be front and center...") - and subsequently he became one of Abby Crabtree's interns, dancing in CCP musical productions for three years.

"I took on a very basic role at CCP at the time. Back then, we didn't really have company positions, so I did everything I was asked to do," he remembers. "I started off performing, I wanted to learn everything I could. If there was something to do, I would volunteer."

When he was injured during a dance sequence in a show then in production, McDonald sought other ways to remain an engaged and vital member of the theater family. "At one point I asked if I could learn how to be stage manager and they let me follow Tracy Schwab around, learning that job."

The powers-that-be at The Playhouse - by this point, Jim Crabtree had assumed the leadership role after his mother, the legendary Mary Crabtree, had retired (and she had succeeded his father, Paul Crabtree, the Broadway veteran who had founded the theater back in 1963) - agreed to give McDonald a chance at stage managing.

"They agreed to it," McDonald says, incredulousness still evident in his voice about 17 years. "So I studied under Sam Hahn and Tracy Schwab. My first show was Annie in 1999."

It may have been then that Jim Crabtree saw something in McDonald that showed more than just a passing interest in performing or helping out backstage, although McDonald admits that his interactions with Crabtree were more a matter of happenstance than ambition.

"Outside of dealing with Jim when he'd be directing a show or passing me in the building, or sometimes seeing him in the office when I was there for something, I didn't know Jim very well," he says.

But when Abby Crabtree moved to Texas to raise her daughter and to teach, McDonald and Jim Crabtree began working together - and when Jim's assistant left to attend to her family's affairs - Bryce stepped up to the plate, asking, "Can I help you? Could I answer your phone when I'm not doing other stuff?"

Then, while performing, stage managing, assisting the producing artistic director at the burgeoning theater - "Basically, I was doing anything I could to be dramatic," he laughs - McDonald realized that he was not only contributing to the Playhouse's success, but he had become an integral element in it.

Yet, even then he was looking for other challenges in order to better comprehend everything that is essential in the running of a major regional theater enterprise and after a 2005 trip to New York City, he decided to give that metropolis a try: After all, if you can make it there, you could make it anywhere...that's what the songs say, right?

"I was turning 30 the next year, so I decided to take the chance," he says.

Going to New York to see two Playhouse veterans - Jeremy Benton and Christine Rowan - open a new show provided McDonald with the impetus to move forward and, with his never-say-die attitude, he made the decision.

"I felt so alive there! And I came back and told Jim that I wanted to give it a shot, he told me to 'do it...spread your wings...learn all you can...so you can come back and do great things.'"

Bryce McDonald's excellent New York adventure was not without its trying moments: "I was making $60 a week at an internship at The Waxman-Williams Company and my rent was $940," which meant that the $2,000 he had in his bank account upon arrival was quickly dwindling. But, ever driven, he pursued every opportunity provided him - "I knew I had to work hard and to learn all I possibly could, because I was starting at the very bottom" - in order to achieve his goals and to realize the dreams he'd nurtured since childhood.

"I met a woman named Gail who was stage managing a show and she liked me," he reports, explaining that the two worked together on a concert version of The Secret Garden, at the end of which Gail asked for his resume.

"I was sitting at a pizza place on February 3 - my birthday - when my phone rang. It was from a New York number I didn't recognize. It was Gail. She asked what was I doing and I told her I was having pizza for my birthday. She asked if I was working and I told her about my $60 a week job at Waxman-Williams," he says.

"She said she had a job for me, starting the next day at Manhattan Theatre Club as a production assistant and that I would have to quit my other job. So I went in and told my boss that I had to quit and he asked, 'Did you come here to intern or to work?' I answered 'to work.'

"'So get to work,' he told me. And the next morning, at 9 a.m., I reported to work at Manhattan Theatre Club."

And with that, Bryce McDonald - that little boy from Overton County, Tennessee, who had wildly imaginative theatrical dreams - went to work on his first-ever Off-Broadway play: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's contemporary comedy Based on a Totally True Story ("There is no more entertaining show in town right now," the New York Daily News wrote).

While working with MTC, McDonald met and favorably impressed New York theater stage manager James FitzSimmons, who asked for his resume, telling him that "we have to work together."

"Fitz told me that it's always good to keep resumes on file," McDonald explains. "And one day he told me to offer me a job at Lincoln Center."

Later, FitzSimmons told McDonald he would probably be needing a new assistant in the not-so-distant future - "Would you be interested?" he queried, telling McDonald that "if you stick with me, in a year, I'll give you your Equity card and your first Broadway show."

During a month-long summer visit back in Tennessee, FitzSimmons called, offering McDonald a job at Roudabout Theatre: "We'll be opening Come Back, Little Sheba on Broadway."

"I left Crossville at the end of that month and went back to New York," McDonald says. "And my career and my life just took off. From there, I continued to work for the next nine years, during which I did nine Broadway shows, nine off-Broadway shows and a number of off-off-Broadway shows.

There were moments of doubt, he says: "There were days when you always say, when do they realize I'm a fraud?"

But to those who worked with him, however, McDonald was the very personification of "the real deal." FitzSimmons, for example, told him he wanted to visit Tennessee, to go to this theater where he learned all about everything that makes theater come to life.

"He told me I had learned things that graduate students had paid big bucks to learn in a classroom by simply volunteering every time I had the chance," McDonald says.

"I just contribute it to the fact that I am the way that I am: I see the world through a different pair of goggles," he muses. "I know there's evil in the world, but I also know there is magic and wonder...if I put good out there, good comes back. I was not going to allow New York to make me cynical.

"How is it possible? I'm holding hands offstage with Mary Louise Parker or I'm sitting in the audience at the Tony Awards, where two of the shows I've worked on are nominated for Tonys. How is that even possible? I kept pinching myself and thanking God."

The secret to his success: "This is why it pays to be nice and personable," he contends. "Some people would look at me like I was a Pollyanna - and I get that - but I just can't take those opportunities for granted."

"I attribute my success to 'who you know' and how you treat people: You have to keep working hard for success, of course, and you can't allow yourself to get comfortable and become complacent."

Rest assured, he takes absolutely nothing for granted - whether it's the guidance and mentorship of Jim Crabtree and Abby Crabtree, his New York City theater achievements, or any of the myriad of circumstances that have ushered his career upon its remarkable and inspiring path - and all of it informs the positive outlook and extraordinary vision he has as he now takes over leadership of Cumberland County Playhouse.

"My experience is part of my whole vision for the theater. Because of what Abby and Jim have taught me and allowed me to do - the whole situation of my life - I know that there have to be other kids like me, other Bryces, out there. The Playhouse gave me the place where I fit, they allowed me to create. I want other kids and teenagers to come to The Playhouse and to be in a safe atmosphere where they can create."

Having now worked for three of the largest not-for-profit theaters in the United States, McDonald has had a unique view of the infrastructure of the theater. But perhaps the most notable thing he's learned: No matter where in the world you are, insofar as the creation of theater is concerned, you encounter the same issues and challenges - most likely, only the budgets are different from one theatrical entity to the next, whether it's in the hills of Tennessee or on the bustling streets of New York. In other words, theater is theater is theater...

"Being able to share your story with someone, your experiences and your thoughts, is what matters. You may not be a big Broadway name like Victoria Clark or Mary Louise Parker, but I guarantee you are facing the same challenges they do," he maintains. "I've always considered myself a good people person and my mother has always said that I never met a stranger. I'm a good schmoozer for sure and I can be a good politician and New York really honed those skills for me.

"The way I handled Frank Langella was completely different from the way I dealt with Vickie Clark or Sheri Rene Scott, and that was completely different from how I dealt with Norbert Leo Butz. I listen to everyone I meet in the same way - from the mother of a third grade student in the children's show, to the janitor who's emptying the trash cans in the office, or a board member. You can be shut down by them or you can take in what they're saying to heart and using that information.

"I realized a long time ago that you need to handle each person in the same way, but slightly different - and no matter where you are, you can never stop dreaming. Sure, you might have budgets and boards of directors to deal with, but it should never stymie your goals. If you do the same thing the same way all the time, that's not how theater works. But if you try something new, something good will come from that."

His best advice for aspiring theater artists, wannabe stars and arts administrators? "Don't complain. Just move through the challenges and enjoy the experience."

Now as producing director of CCP, McDonald admits that "everyone wants a piece of you," making scheduling a paramount concern. "New York really prepped me for that. I think I'm able to handle that challenge because of the tightropes you have to walk in New York, with agents and managers, publicistz, directors, director's assistants...I learned a lot about what marketing is and how it works and how the correct or incorrect way of marketing a show can make you or break you.

"How do you create a hook for your company, in order to maintain financials and people keep buying tickets to your shows is essential to a company's success - no matter where you are."

Looking to the future of Cumberland County Playhouse, McDonald suggested that "We need to continue building our customer base. There is a misconception that Smoke on the Mountain is all we do, but we're so much more than that, so we have to keep growing that audience. It's great that we are known as the theater that does Smoke on the Mountain, but we are truly so much more than that.

To McDonald's view, immediate opportunities abound: CCP "needs a stronger social media presence, a better website for people to visit online, better trailers to advertise our upcoming productions, better interviews to welcome new people to the company" and much more - things that span the vast technological advances that have been created in The Playhouse's fifty-plus years of life on the Cumberland Plateau.

What things loom largest in McDonald's view of CCP's continued artistic evolution: "I would love to see us add a 'new works' spot to our season, to give our audiences a chance to see on our stage that's never been seen anywhere before. Currently, we're cultivating our Tennessee artists like Lori Fischer (Barbara's Blues Kitchen, The Sparkley Clean Funeral Singers), Nate Eppler and Dietz Osborne (Southern Fried Nuptials, Southern Fried Funeral), and we want to go beyond the borders of the state. We're in the pre-talks stage of having Hunter Foster bring in a new musical he's working on next fall.

"We also want to create our own Tennessee Playwriting Festival - featuring Tennessee playwrights who have Southern-theme shows that work well with our audiences. We want to turn The Playhouse into a place where theater artists can come to and test out their work on our audience. We want to work on creating new works, while still reviving the classic musicals we all love and doing new musicals that people want to see and do something that people like Lori, Nate and Dietz have just created."

With that, Bryce McDonald is off to face another challenge: He's directing Lori Fischer's Sparkley Clean Funeral Singers for an April 1 opening, there's a TV crew awaiting his arrival for a piece about an upcoming PBS documentary about CCP and there are letters to sign, emails to write and people clamoring to share their ideas with him.

And, perhaps, there's a fourth grader from small town Tennessee who needs to be inspired by the knowledge that in Bryce McDonald's world: anything is possible.

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