As Mimi Madden McDonald prepared to audition for her elementary school’s third-grade talent show many years ago, the teacher in charge asked what her talent was.
“Talking!” she announced blithely.
Though completely unaware at that moment, McDonald had just identified the trait that would carry her through a long and satisfying career in acting and theater administration.
For decades, the articulate and energetic woman has been the managing director of Key West’s acclaimed Red Barn Theatre — a theater she and her husband Gary helped establish with colleagues, including Joy Hawkins and Richard Magesis. She’s also vice president of the theater’s guiding board.
McDonald earned a theater degree at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, then studied dance with the renowned Twyla Tharp at American University. She then headed for Key West, where college friends Rita and Roddy Brown had founded the Greene Street Theater.
“The troupe that came from Richmond decided it was a whole lot more fun to start a theater in paradise than it was to beat the streets of New York City for jobs, with all the competition up there,” said McDonald. “Our impetus was to come down and start a professional theater, because we were interested in the craft — and running shows for longer periods of time, so that actors could really settle into a part.”
In the early years she earned much-needed extra money as a bank teller, which prepared her for handling theater finances and administration. She also choreographed Tennessee Williams’ “Will Mr. Merriwether Return from Memphis?” that launched Key West’s Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center at the then-Florida Keys Community College. She and Gary house-sat for Tennessee Williams himself.
At the same time, the McDonalds helped start the Red Barn Actors Studio, named for the small carriage house that stood behind the Key West Woman’s Club on Duval Street — the building that became the Red Barn Theatre and the company’s home.
The Barn opened in 1980 and mounted five productions during its inaugural 1980-81 season. While funds remained tight, the theater founders’ creativity and optimism outweighed any financial lack.
“It was so much fun,” McDonald recalled. “It was amazing and stimulating, and the sky was the limit.”
Now, 45 years after its initial season, the Red Barn is recognized as a cultural cornerstone that helped set the stage for the creation of other Key West arts organizations. The theater’s successes have included a long-ago production of the musical comedy “Nunsense” that still evokes praise, the American premiere of playwright Hy Conrad’s COVID-era farce “Quarantine For Two,” the biannual and much-loved “Short Attention Span Theatre” shows, and thought-provoking offerings like “The Code” and “Lifespan of a Fact.”
Guiding the Barn’s productions and progress is a family affair for McDonald. Gary, her husband of some 50 years, is the longtime technical director — now stepping back and turning over some duties to their son Jack, who has assisted behind the scenes since childhood. Their daughter Amber also embraced a theatrical career, acting in New York and Los Angeles before returning to the Keys and the stage where she grew up.
While devoting most of her professional life to the Red Barn, McDonald is also the hard-working producer of the Masquerade March and other events for Key West’s annual Fantasy Fest celebration She choreographed Key West High School choral productions for 20 years and directed young actors in local Keys Kids shows for 10 years.
Directing has become her primary passion.
“I’d much rather direct than act right now,” McDonald said. “With acting, you’re reading a script and doing what the director tells you to do — but directing, I felt limitless.”
Her latest directorial triumph was “Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B,” an irreverent mystery-comedy that reimagines famed sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson as an eccentric female duo. Debuting in January 2025, it earned stellar reviews and helped McDonald stretch her skills in new ways.
“It pulled out parts of me that I didn’t know I had,” she admitted. “I found it really liberating and refreshing and fun — that’s what happens when you have a good cast that can interpret what you’re saying.”
She will next direct the Red Barn’s 2025 holiday play, “Scrooge MacBeth,” described as an off-kilter mashup of Christmas and William Shakespeare.
When she’s not involved in theater work or exploring her creativity, McDonald spends time cooking, recharging her batteries at the family’s inherited hardwood tree farm in West Virginia, and enjoying the Key West community.
“It’s exotic and beautiful and colorful all the time,” she summed up, displaying her still-keen talent for talking. “It’s a very special place where we’re all connected to each other, and we all share the remarkable history of this crazy island.”
