Catherine Butterfield


Catherine Butterfield is an American playwright, TV/film writer and actress. Her play Joined at the Head was performed at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 1992 and won the Robert L. Stevens/Kennedy Center award for excellence, as well as being published in Best Plays of 1992-93. Mel Gussow wrote, "In this, her first full-length play to be presented in New York, Butterfield is revealed as a playwright with a refreshing talent for probing the reality of relationships. In a manner related to that of Tom Stoppard and John Guare, the work deals enticingly with truth and fiction... a vibrant reflection on life and art." Subsequent award-winning plays include Life in the Trees and The Sleeper
In television, she has been a writer/producer for Ghost Whisperer, Party of Five, and Fame L.A.. For the web, she wrote and directed the short film John's Hand, which can be seen at www.strike.tv and was an official entry at the Asheville Film Festival and Los Angeles Hi-Def Film Festival. She wrote a screenplay for Participant Media based on the life of Susie Krabacher, a Playboy centerfold turned savior of the children of Haiti, and is currently developing a film for Lifetime TV based on the life of the teen-aged violinist Tiffany Clay, the subject of a 2009 New York Times article.

Biography

Butterfield was born in Manhattan on February 5, 1958. She was raised in Edina, Minnesota, and Hingham, Massachusetts, the daughter of a television executive. The eldest of five, she graduated from Southern Methodist University with a BFA in drama and began her career as an actress in regional theatre (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Seattle Repertory, Long Wharf, later starring in New York productions of her plays Joined at the Head, Snowing at Delphi, Where the Truth Lies, and Bobo's Birthday, a one-woman show.

Published plays