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Butler University
Butler University is most proud of its tradition of excellence and innovation. Challenging and enabling students to meet their personal and professional goals has guided the University since 1855. Today, Butler is an independent, coeducational, nonsectarian university, with a total undergraduate enrollment of more than 3,800 students. The University is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.
Butler Theatre is an award-winning undergraduate program accredited by the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST). The Butler program offers a choice of two degrees: Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in theater and Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in arts administration. The program fosters a creative environment where students develop practical and critical skills, create exciting work, and commit fully to the collaborative process of making theater. Through its professional ties in the Indiana Repertory Theatre, the program provides students regular interaction with professional theater artists, technicians, and administrators, and it facilitates professional experience through internships and contract employment.
Campus and Surroundings Indianapolis, Indiana’s state capital and the twelfth-largest city in the nation, has a variety of cultural activities, including the Indiana Repertory Theatre, Phoenix Theatre, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Dance Kaleidoscope, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the world’s largest children’s museum. Citywide celebrations are plentiful, including ethnic festivals, art fairs, and outdoor music festivals.
Program Facilities The Lilly Hall Studio Theatre is the venue for most main stage productions. Robertson Studio 33 is the space used for classes in voice, acting, and directing and for student-directed productions and rehearsals. Butler’s Clowes Memorial Hall is a 2,200-seat performance hall that hosts a variety of events, from community arts groups to national and international touring companies and many University performances. A new performing arts complex is currently under construction. The first phase of the complex, a 47,000-square-foot addition to Lilly Hall called the Courtyard Building, was completed in spring 2003. This new building houses a choral rehearsal hall, an instrumental rehearsal hall, dance studios, a theater studio, an electronic music lab, and a percussion studio. The second phase, the 140-seat Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall, was completed in fall 2004. The third phase is a 450-seat performance hall/proscenium theater with adjustable acoustical features.
Special Programs Butler is committed to experiencing theater as a global art form, in theory and in practice. The University runs a comprehensive study-abroad program, which encourages students in their junior year to study at a university overseas for one semester. The following countries have emerged as the most popular destinations for theater majors: Australia, United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Germany, China (Hong Kong), and South America.
Created in 2002, Butler International Theatre Exchange (BITE) is an annual workshop for students, educators, and theater professionals in Indiana who are devoted to exploring transnational processes of creating live performances with master artists and theater companies from around the world. Each exchange is structured around a twelve-day intensive program of training, held during Butler’s first summer session in May.
Cooperative Agreements Butler Theatre enjoys a creative partnership with the Indiana Repertory Theatre (IRT), Indiana’s largest, fully professional regional theater located in the heart of the city of Indianapolis. The benefits of this partnership include a freshman orientation program that provides first-semester theater majors access to the artistic, administrative, and technical staff of the IRT as an introduction to professional theater practice; a stage management training program taught by the IRT’s senior stage management team; and professional internships for juniors and seniors in all areas of the theater’s operation. An increasing number of theater majors have made their professional acting debuts at the IRT during their four years of study.
Faculty/Alumni Butler’s faculty members have expertise in stage directing, acting, performance theory, costume design, play analysis, stage lighting, arts administration, children’s theater, technical direction, and auditioning and voice. BeckettWorks received ACF National Artistic Achievement Awards for Directing (Department Chair John Green) and Scenic Lighting and Design (Assistant Professor Madeleine Sobota.) Associate Professor Diane Timmerman had her 90-minute adaptations of five Shakespeare plays published by Smith and Krauss.
Butler alumni work in a range of theater careers, including an education assistant at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, a marketing manager at the Yale Repertory Theatre, an owner of a casting agency, and actors in Los Angeles and Chicago. Other alumni are technical directors, costumer designers, stage managers, and soundboard operators.
Student Performance Opportunities Butler Theater stages between fifteen and twenty shows each year, including four major productions directed by faculty members and guest artists, student-directed honors theses productions and independent projects, faculty and student-directed works in progress, and plays written by students.
In 2000 and 2003, the department was invited to tour Ireland with productions of plays by Samuel Beckett and W.B. Yeats. In 2004, the department went to Italy, and in 2005, it went to Australia. The department also went to St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2006.
Career Placement Services and Opportunities With a liberal arts education and practical experience, Butler graduates are prepared for success in many careers. Collaborative partnerships with professional theaters provide networking and internship opportunities for theater students. A sampling of internships include the following positions: production at the Phoenix Theatre; sound at the Indiana Repertory Theatre; stage manager for the Phoenix Theatre, Civic Theatre, and Edyvean Repertory Theatre; marketing for Fosse at the Shubert Theatre in Chicago; public relations for the Indiana Arts Commission; internships at Denver Center Theatre Academy and Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago; and acting at venues around the country. Graduates often find employment at the venues where they served as interns.
Application ProceduresDeadline--freshmen and transfers: continuous. Required: high school transcript, college transcript(s) for transfer students, minimum 2.0 high school GPA, interview, audition, SAT I or ACT test scores, head shot photo, theatre application. Recommended: minimum 3.0 high school GPA, letter of recommendation, portfolio. Auditions held 6 times on campus.
Undergraduate ContactMs. Kathy Lang, Admission Representative, Jordan College of Fine Arts, Butler University, Lilly Hall - 138B, 4600 Sunset Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana 46208; 800-368-6852 ext. 9656, fax: 317-940-9658.
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