Tim Pettolina, House Manager at Hamilton's Broadway Home, Wanted to Be in the Room Where it Happened

Few people today know the Richard Rodgers Theatre—the Broadway theater currently home to Hamilton—as intimately as Tim Pettolina. As the theater’s house manager, he ensures that the building is a well-oiled machine, day after day: everything from accounting and payroll to customer service to plumbing. “You’re basically running the building,” he told Perry Sook on The Broadway Show, "making sure everything is smooth for every show—eight shows a week.”

Pettolina spoke to The Broadway Show in between showing off the landmarked theater's lavish interior, designed by Herbert J. Krapp: foliate motifs, gold leaf and gleaming cherubs, as well as two music-themed murals installed during the theater's $3.5 million renovation in 2013.

Though he dabbled in acting when he was young, Pettolina realized he didn’t want to be on stage. Instead, he studied theater design technology at the State University of New York at Purchase, then worked as an assistant at the Nederlander Organization. “I still wanted to be in the room where it happened,” he said. “I wound up working in front-of-house and enjoying it.” He worked as associate manager at the Marquis Theatre for seven years before moving over to the Richard Rodgers, just in time to manage the building’s operations for the Billy Joel musical Movin’ Out.

In 2008, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights opened at the Richard Rodgers. Clearly, Pettolina and all the staff at the theater made a good impression on the show’s creatives and producers. “They kept saying they wanted to come back here because they enjoyed working with us so much.” Lo and behold, Miranda’s Hamilton opened at the Richard Rodgers seven years later, with much of the In the Heights team in tow.

Among Pettolina’s duties: guiding celebrities to their seats. It's a duty he has performed a lot since 2015. “You meet them outside, bring them in so that they're not so noticeable, and sneak them out, bring them backstage. There's a whole choreographed situation. It's been quite a thrill with this show particularly.”