We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Catherine Butterfield a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Catherine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Most of what has held me back in life, aside from the obvious fact of being a woman in what is still, regrettably, a man’s world, is a lack of nerve. I was a shy child from the moment I stepped outside my home, although as the oldest of five, I remember being pretty bossy with the little kids. But the wide outer world was terrifying to me, and it took me a long time to own who I was enough to be able to assert myself. My father, who had a gregarious, larger-than-life personality, was always trying to get me to run for office, excel in sports, etc, but his efforts were anathema to me, although I recognized that they sprang from love. It was only when my father died suddenly at a young age that all of that changed. My intense grief at losing him caused me to fill the void by acquiring some of his confident characteristics. At first, it felt unnatural, but soon I found myself putting myself out there in a way that I never would have done before his death. It was my way of holding onto him, I guess, and soon it became a part of my nature to be more bold, to risk failure, often with success as the result. After being a professional actress for some years, I decided to take the leap to writing plays, which led to my first one-woman show. Writing plays for myself to perform led to writing plays for others, and soon I had a production at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Success in New York as a playwright led me to risk going to Los Angeles to seek TV and film work, which bore great fruit for me. Lately, and not without a certain amount of terror, I wrote my first novel “The Serpent and the Rose”. I’d like to think – in fact, I know – that my father would be happy that his shy wallflower finally found a way to bloom.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As a child, I was an avid reader and it wasn’t long before writing followed. Coming from a large family, I wrote plays for my sisters and brother to perform for the neighborhood kids in our garage. A little girl a block away had a competing theatre and we were always trying to purloin one another’s audiences, it was a friendly rivalry. Writing has always been, for me, a way of reaching out to the rest of the world and making a connection, reinforcing the sense that we are all here together, have similar flaws, suffer the same pain, feel the same joy. It’s a way to feel less lonely in the world. I am delighted that my plays have enjoyed success and that people still come up to me and say that one of my plays touched them deeply, made them laugh, whatever. It’s a great gift to me to hear that.

Our family moved around quite a bit as a child, because my father had a career as a manager for TV stations. The years in Minnesota and Massachusetts were probably my most formative. My mother was one of the first women to go to Yale drama school and have her play produced there, so both parents were an inspiration.

The audience for a novel differs in that the reader has their experience privately and then shares their feelings about it with others; the internet has become a wonderful exponent of that. Readers of books seem, if anything, even more passionate about their likes and dislikes than theatre-goers, who may go out whistling the theme of a show, or briefly discuss it in the lobby, and then forget it. This is not always true; I’ve witnessed performances from years ago that are imprinted forever, but I would suggest that, on the whole, books tend to stay with one longer, perhaps because the reader tends to place her/himself in the role of a major character while reading.

And then there is television. One can indeed have a very powerful experience watching a show on TV, and I have written extensively for TV but always with the understanding that, by definition, one watches TV while doing other things. The five-act structure required of a network TV writer is for the commercial breaks. I don’t kid myself that anyone (aside from my mother) ever sat through an episode of one of my TV shows without getting up to go the the kitchen or bathroom.

This is what always brings me back to the theatre, and now, to writing fiction. The sense of “you are there” is a powerful thing.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think I would feel totally lost in the world if I didn’t have creative drive. It’s what gets me up in the morning, and it’s what keeps me interested in life. I’m grateful to my brain for being tickled by things and being driven to make a story out of them, it gives structure to my day and an outlet for my feelings, I guess if you were feeling uncharitable you would call it an addiction, but it is an addiction that harms no one and eventually brings others joy, so let’s call it a creative compulsion.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

It feels like the entertainment business is filled with pivots, and one makes them constantly! As an actress, I would pour my heart and soul into an audition for a role I felt passionate about, do a brilliant audition, and learn that another actress had won the role. One must pivot. One must forget about that passion and develop a new passion immediately, or go mad.

Another example – I dearly wanted to become a playwright but didn’t have the resources to finance the time it would take to write a play. At that time the opportunity to understudy a role on a national tour came up. Normally, I would have preferred to stay in New York and get a “real” role, but instead, I recognized it as a chance to finance my writing. I took the job, toured for nine months without ever getting to play the role I was understudying, and wrote my first full-length play in hotel rooms — a huge pivot that changed the course of my career.

One more — Theatre, as you may know, is undergoing a huge shift. Since the pandemic, theatres are closing or shortening their seasons all over the country. As a playwright, this makes the chances of seeing your work performed ever more remote. Pivot! Write a novel. “The Serpent and the Rose” is the product of that most recent pivot.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.catherinebutterfield.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catherine.butterfield/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/58499594362
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCts7cG3EiUMgqJsLPgSuTLw
• Other: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQYYWDV6?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_N94QFN1MAZ3DDWR4AJCV

Image Credits
Daniel Reichert