Hello Buenos Aires(and 2,500 fans!)

Imagine coming to work everyday where dealing with hundreds to over a thousand screaming fans and meeting celebrities is part of your job? Well that is what it is like on the clock for Juan Garcia known around the workplace as “Cisco.”  Working as the doorman at the Marquis Theatre in Times Square located on 46^th street between 7^th and 8^th Avenues which is currently home to the Broadway revival of Evita is no where near a typical office job.

            Turning the corner on 46^th street to enter his office at the stage door, I pass a group of about a dozen gaggling and excited young ladies. “That’s normal” Cisco tells me. He explains to me that everyday since the show began performances, there is always a group of people out there, even now on a cold winter night the weather cannot keep them away. “They come before the show even starts and wait outside the door so they can meet Ricky [Martin]. We always tell them that he will not come out until the show is over and they always tell ‘Yeah we know.’” The fans are loud, they know what they want and he shared with me some of his crazy fan encounters, the celebrities he has met and insights on some of the greats who have walked through his door.

            Since the death of his predecessor Hector in 2006, Cisco has taken over his old post. Working to ensure that all the actors and crew are signing in and get in and out safely, monitoring the guest list so no one can sneak by and most notably, managing and controlling the waiting fans outside the Stage door who want to catch a glimpse of their favorite star. While Cisco has seen many big budget productions come through the venue from his first in 2006 The Drowsy Chaperone to Christmas with Donny and Marie [Osmond] and to Evita’s predecessor the Bernadette Peters and Elaine Paige revival of Follies, nothing has been quite like Evita. “It can get pretty crazy. Sometimes we have over 2,500 people out here. “ With huge crowd volumes packing into a small area, with the vast majority here for Ricky Martin, Cisco has seen it all. “Not even the crowds from past shows [9 to 5 and Drowsy Chaperone] compare to this. A lot of the fans are sometimes drunk. Different problems occur as everybody wants to see Ricky [Martin] so sometimes a fan gets upset because the person is a foot closer to where he is going to be and they either want that person moved back or be let closer.”

 With quite an interesting bunch of eager fans every night it comes as no surprise that he has called in for reinforcements on numerous occasions. “The police make their presence known and sometimes it is necessary to call the cops  to deal with someone” he tells me. But, that does not stop some fans from going to the extreme.  “About three or four weeks ago I was assaulted by a woman and the cops got involved” and that on few occasions people have overthrown the barricades. There have even been times that due to excessive shoving and pushing from the crowd he has had to move small children near the front over to the other side of the barricade for their own safety.

While each new production brings a new set of fans to the stage door, it also brings a new group of actors and celebrities. While he sings the praises of past celebrity tenants from Donny and Marie Osmond, he is  “still waiting for them [Donny and Marie] to come back to this theatre” as well as the “amazing” Dolly Parton, it is current X-Factor contestant Carly Rose Sonenclar from the short lived Frank Wildhorn musical Wonderland who stands out the most to him. A little girl with an amazing set of pipes a smile comes across his face as he recounts her bright smile that she would flash every time she walked through his door adding that he “would be surprised if she did not win the whole competition [X-Factor]”. While getting to work with celebrity performers on a daily basis, Cisco also gets the opportunity to meet some of their well-known friends and other celebrities that come to the theatre from Lea Michele to their most famous guest Michelle Obama. He has met the likes of Katie Holmes, Tobey Maguire, Marc Anthony, Eva Longoria, Sigourney Weaver and even the ex Mayor of Puerto Rico.

It is getting later, the crowd is getting bigger and louder and the first act is not even over. As he settles back down after coming back from leaving to deal with a dilemma upstairs I notice signed photos of Donny and Marie Osmond asking about the famous brother-sister duo, he smiles and says “that was the first time I have ever had sixty year old ladies trying to get backstage!”