​​THE SLEEPER

       A dark comedy

Winner of Kaufman and Hart Award           for Best New Comedy

A sheltered but unhappy housewife falls in love with her son's tutor, and then begins to suspect he's a terrorist.   

Ep. 35, "Protest Envy"

Originally produced at Manhattan Theatre Club, 1992

​       Drama Desk nominee, Outstanding New Play

Robin Rose and Catherine Butterfield,

​Pasadena Playhouse Production.

​"Not since Steel Magnolias has there been a new comedy as laughable and loveable.  The humor swells from smiles to chuckles to guffaws, and sentiment waxes from warm to glowing."   New York Daily News
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A working class woman arranges to meet the daughter she gave up for adoption years ago, who has grown to live a life of wealth and privilege.  Optioned by Broadway producer Charles Duggan (Greater Tuna, Twilight of the Golds, Private Lives, K2) for a New York production. 

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             GELLHORN

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Ellen Parker and Catherine Butterfield in the Manhattan Theatre Club production

Episode #18, "Wheel of Medicine"

Deborah Puette and Brian Rohan                              Kim Shively and Dorothea Harahan                                                    Lori Okin and Gino Anthony Pesi                                           

Three different eras in the life of a New York Brownstone.  First produced at the Laguna Playhouse in 2008. 

"Intimate triple two-hander boasts enough intriguing characters and plot twists to satisfy a narrative-hungry audience..." Variety

​"The playwright has an engaging, easy tone, and she's refreshingly frank about the ways women let their desire tie them into knots."  LA TIMES

                                                                                                ​Published by Playscripts, Inc.​

 Irish Repertory Production, New York

Joined at the Head​

During this extraordinary time, when our hopes and dreams for theatre have taken a temporary back seat, please enjoy some recent episodes of a series co-created with Ron West entitled "LIFE DURING LOCKDOWN."   We hope they give you a laugh and take you out of the darkness for a bit!

TOP OF THE WORLD has been rescheduled to premiere at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis in the fall of 2021.

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​"Plunges us into an entirely insane alternate reality that somehow feels more logical and sane than the current state of our nation.   Buckle up folks, you're in for one hell of a ride! " STAGE RAW
"A versatile ensemble with comic chops and a crisp sense of timing,"....."An entertaining evening, with the promise of diversion from the twisted lunacy of today's headlines amply fulfilled."   CAPITAL AND MAIN
"A triumph... in your face lampooning, akin to something one might see on "Saturday Nite Live" only better, smarter, and funnier"   THEATER NOTES
"An entertaining antidote to a world where actual news is deemed fake and outright lies are dubbed 'alternate facts.'....  STAGESCENELA
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Episode #26, "You May Have Strange Dreams"

Episode #16, "The Perils of Insta-Wine."

With Adam Ferrara and Peggy Scott, Abingdon Theatre, NYC

Episode #30, "A visit from Peter Onorati"

PRODUCED PLAYS

​LIFE IN THE TREES

Ray VIrta, Ellen Parker, Ms. Butterfield in the WPA Theatre Production, NYC

Episode #33, "Vixen vs. Vixen", with Jean Smart

Episode #34, "How to Write"

Photo by Paula Goldman

Mandy Levin, Benjamin Matthes, Theatre Tribe, LA

TO THE BONE   

Jeff Allyn and Catherine Butterfield, 

​Pasadena Playhouse

Nominated for Drama Desk and Obie Award.  Winner of New York Newsday/Oppenheimer award.

​Reviews of Manhattan Theatre Club production:

"Refreshing talent... In a manner related to Tom Stoppard and John Guare, the work deals enticingly with truth and fiction... a vibrant reflection on life, art and friendship.....a striking accomplishment."   

NEW YORK TIMES

“An incontestable achievement,”  THE NEW YORKER

“For the actress and the playwright to be 'Joined at the Head,' as they are in Catherine Butterfield's fine, funny play of that title at the Manhattan Theater Club at City Center is a feat tantamount to splitting one's personality. That Butterfield does it successfully is a tribute to her many talents as a writer and actress.An elegant off-Broadway debut for a fine playwright and actress who is a name to watch for in either capacity.” UPI

                                                  Published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Episode #28, "OMG Our First Guest Star!" With Kiff VandenHeuvel

      TOP OF THE WORLD

​​BROWNSTONE.

"Butterfield does in ninety minutes what it would take many writers a lifetime to do -- peel back the layers of unique individuals to make you understand how they feel."  North Arkansas News

"A prolific writer, Butterfield confidently switches among settings and does frequent about faces in tone. Zippy and hilarious."  LA Times

#48, "KAMALA!"

NEW PLAYS

#42, "FilmFest Fundamentals"

A couple navigates the maddening waters of their later in life "geriatric" pregnancy. 

​​NEW PLAY:  Adaptation of the Anthony Trollope novel.   A satire for our times - a notorious industrialist comes to London with his pampered daughter, cons the rich and powerful into investing into his fraudulent schemes, then runs for Parliament and wins!  If it sounds eerily familiar, credit Trollope with his keen eye for that which is eternal in the human condition.  Co-written with Ron West.

ELECTRA: REVISITED

She's been described as "the greatest war correspondent of the twentieth century."  She covered every conflict from the Spanish Civil War to Vietnam and beyond.  She was the first woman on the beaches at Normandy, one of the first to view and write the concentration camps. She was married to Ernest Hemingway for five tumultuous years but don't dare to ask her about it.  She had a play on Broadway, she wrote compelling novellas. One of most fascinating women America has produced and yet for most of her life an expatriot.  She's Martha Gellhorn, and this play is about her life.  Eleven actors:  6 women and 5 men play myriad characters in her life and in her stories.

​"A laugh out loud hoot!"  Malibu TImes

This dramatic comedy with music composed by Peter Golub was given a hilarious and moving staged read at the Antaeus Theatre in Los Angeles on October 20th, directed by Ron West.

Episode #24, "How Long, Oh Lord?"

#44, "The Rise of Stella" with Nancy Youngblut

​THE PLAYS OF CATHERINE BUTTERFIELD

Amy Tribbey and Matthew Walker, Arkansas Repertory

Josh Brolin and Melissa Hurst in the GeVa Production, Rochester, NY

Catherine Butterfield, author of the eloquent "Joined at the Head," is a playwright with a near-perfect touch: Her wry reversals of plot and audience expectations deliver compassionate takes on contemporary contradictions and confusions.  "Life in the Trees" is a gem, achingly funny and true. CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"An amusing exegesis of urban angst, "Life in the Trees" places Catherine Butterfield among the premiere ranks of disaffected playwrights whose humor derives from endearingly     neurotic characters ravaged by the killing stress of big city life." LA TIMES

"Butterfield again proves herself a superior playwright, a master of delicious dialogue, with heart beneath the humor."  VARIETY

                                                                           Published by Samuel French, Inc.

"What is the playwright's equivalent of the novelist's "unputdownable'- 'ungetupable' perhaps? Butterfield ... deserves some such accolade." - The New York Post

"A thoughtful, balanced, cleanly structured work. Ms. Butterfield has a gift for clear exposition that many other playwrights would benefit from." - New York Times

"A richly complex story about what people are willing to live with in marriages that aren't perfect.  Under  Evan Yionoulis' sensitive direction even the children come off as totally believable."

New York Newsday

​Published by Samuel French, Inc.