Butler Theater Department impacts local community

The Theatre Department at Butler has had a presence in the community for decades, impacting both students and audiences alike.

Leslie Coates is chair of the department. He believes that theater plays an important role in education.

“I think studying performance helps an individual grow as a connective human somebody who can think about being in someone else’s shoes.”

“Somebody who can work on connecting with others for specific purposes while also developing social skills.”

Coates said he appreciated the way such work cultivates positive relationships and crucial team building components. He said building sets and designing costumes or doing projections or sounds helps students work together as a team. He said the environment helps hold people accountable.

Theater production can also open up career opportunities for later in life. Many of Butler’s students become actors, tech producers or church program directors. However, career training is not the only thing theater offers. The department also reaches out to the community - especially the children who come to see the plays Butler puts on.

“I think the biggest, most impactful thing we do is the theater for young audiences. These elementary school kids come and see the shows. We do it every February. We invite elementary school kids to come. We don’t charge them,” Coates said.

Recently the department staged the children’s play “Suzette Who Set to Sea.”

"The main plot is centered around Suzette, who is a sea-loving little girl who has been bucking the rules, trying to get on the ocean,” Coates explained.

“The rules say girls can’t be on the ocean. So, that’s her character. But really what happens is that all the men who are sailors and fishermen and such go out to sea and they don’t come back. And so, the women then have to band together, build a boat and go find them.”

As well as offering entertainment, the play introduces children to various social concerns including the gender gap and legislation that isolates minority groups.

Coates especially liked how this play gave elementary kids a chance to hear poetic language.

“It exposes young people to new ways of speaking. I’m maybe showing my age, but modern culture I think it’s so abbreviated. I call it “internetty.” Like everything’s in tiny bites - small words, quips, abbreviations and such.”

“I really like forcing ourselves back to a more extended language - something a little more fluid, a little more complex a little more layered. I think it pushes us to think in new ways.”

The theater department puts on an average of four plays each academic year. These productions are free for any and every full-time student.

“A student of any institution not only can attend for free, but they can bring a second person for free. So, you can get two tickets per show - not just per production, but per night. So, someone could go four times and bring a friend each time for nothing,” Coates said.

What money the department does make off general admissions and senior-priced tickets goes straight back to the institution.

“The school funds us. They fund us fully. And then we take anything we can make and just give it back to the school. And I could talk a long time about that, but I believe that’s important because in some ways, it’s just our small contribution back to a big institution that’s making this possible for us,” Coates said. S