Monica Butler

Children's Theater of Madison, Forward Theater Company

Career Roadmap

Monica's work combines: Acting & Theatre, Fashion, and Problem Solving

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Costume Designer/Wardrobe Supervisor

I design, create and maintain costumes for local theater companies.

High School

Bachelor's Degree: Theatre/Theater

My path in life took a while to figure out

1.
I got involved in and enjoyed theater when I was a kid in Minnesota.
2.
But I was also interested in science and wanted to be a doctor so I majored in biology in college.
3.
In my junior year, I went to India and came back and realized I wasn't happy.
4.
I remembered how happy I was doing theater so I started taking theater classes.
5.
Then I found myself in the costume shop and I loved the work and loved the people.
6.
I went to grad school in California to get more experience.
7.
Then I worked for a major opera company.
8.
Then I had a family and moved back to the midwest and started working for theaters there.

THE NOISE
Messages from Parents:
No one said 'you should' but there was no model for an artistic career in my family. Theater was a hobby. I got into a performing arts high school when I was 16 and my parents were reluctant to let me go because they were worried about what "theater life" was like (drugs, body image issues, narcissism, etc, I guess) so I didn't go. My dad encouraged my interest in science and I liked that encouragement. So it took me a little while to go off on my own.
How I responded:
I tried out a lot of different things and listened to a lot of the Noise and followed a lot of Noise into different things but in the end I went with the quality of people I found. I always told myself that I would say yes to a project as long as it was fun and the people were good. If those two requirements weren't fulfilled then I would move on. It has been a pretty good navigational system.

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