Spring Break
From sweeping the floor to directing a show
Sergey Loginov
Daily Staff Writer
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Butler will be presented with the award today, during the NAACP's 15th annual ceremony of Image Awards, the event that, according to its Web site, "celebrates the outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in the arts as well as those individuals or groups who promote social justice."
"The 'Pathfinder Award' is given to a person or an organization that has made a contribution to the African American culture over a long period of time," said Ethel Walker, professor of television, radio, film and theatre.
Butler is recognized as an original founding member of the Negro Ensemble Company of New York City, where he worked as stage manager, lighting designer, actor, and director from 1968 to 1973.
"Buddy was a jack-of-all-trades," said Charles Weldon, a New Yorker and a veteran of the Negro Ensemble who has been with the company since 1970. "He could do anything you can think of doing in a theater - from sweeping the floor to directing a show."
Butler joined the company as an assistant stage manager at the age of 21, shortly after getting his undergraduate degree in theater design from Howard University in Washington, D.C.
"I was never unemployed since that," Butler said. "All I did during my five years in New York was theater - I never waited tables, never worked in a hotel, never had a second job."
Butler said the Negro Ensemble Company was in the vanguard of the black theater movement at a time when very few African American plays were being staged.
"The Negro Ensemble Company was a major force in developing employment for African American writers, directors, actors and even technicians," Walker said. "It gave start to the careers of such famous actors as Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson."
In New York, "in the place where everybody wants to make it," Butler met with the people who shared his worldview and love of theater.
"The Negro Ensemble Company spoke the language I was familiar with and did works that spoke to my heritage and my history," Butler said.
Working with the Negro Ensemble Company also gave him an opportunity to try himself in on-Broadway stage productions and in film.
Butler played with Al Pacino in the Tony-awarded "Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?" His film credits include blacksploitation pictures of Robert Downey Sr. "Putney Swope," "Pound" and "Greaser's Palace," as well as two early films of Brian De Palma, "Greetings" and "Hi, Mom!," where he played with Robert De Niro.
Since he left the Negro Ensemble Company in 1973, Butler has directed numerous productions across the United States. His latest play, "The Trial of one Short-Sighted Black Woman Versus Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae," is showing Friday at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater.
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