BUTLER DISPLAYS HER League of Chicago Theatres Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024. The League noted that she has been a huge advocate for Season of Concern for decades. Her dedication, positive spirit and talents are appreciated and indispensable to the Chicagoland theatre community.
E. Faye Butler’s career spans more than 40 years performing in films and television and directing plays and musicals, and performing in concerts, clubs and cabarets both nationally and internationally.
She’s such a gem in her own right, after having grown up with an appreciation for the arts.
“My passion is theater, and my parents were influential in making sure that every week we saw something—a ballet, a symphony, an art gallery,” Butler said. “There was always lots of music in my South Side home, and there was always the feeling that we could express ourselves.”
To that end, Butler said that “It was a great upbringing, and I never thought I would not do the arts.”
She shares this appreciation for the arts through her theater work and her highlighting the work of others.
At the Goodman Theatre in 2019, she portrayed Fannie Lou Hamer in “Fannie! The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer,” as well as jazz greats Dinah Washington in 1999 and Ella Fitzgerald in 2017 at the Auditorium Theatre.
She has also performed in “Pullman Porter Blues,” August Wilson’s “King Hedley II” and “Ma Rainey ‘s Black Bottom,” among others.
As a way of highlighting the work of someone she refers to as a unsung heroine, Butler directed a play about Blues icon Rosetta Tharpe and her young protégée, gospel and R&B singer Marie Knight, as they prepared for a tour that would establish them as one of the great duet teams in musical history. The play is called “Marie & Rosetta” and premiered at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater late last year. She is due to direct it at Asolo Repertory in Sarasota, Florida, in 2026.
Butler’s more than 170 awards include four Black Theater Alliance Awards, the prestigious Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship, (Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne) where she was chosen as one of the nation’s ten best regional actors in 2012 to participate in an immersion program at Ten Chimneys in Genesee Depot, Wisconsin.
She has received numerous Joseph Jefferson Awards (Jeff Award) for performances, including in “The Wiz” at the Marriott Theatre, “Gypsy” at Porchlight Theatre, “Ella” at the Northlight Theatre and for “Caroline or Change” at the Court Theatre.
Her most recent Jeff Award was for Best Director in “Ain’t Misbehavin” at the Drury Lane and for acting in “The Nacirema Society” at the Goodman, both awarded in 2024.
An award that she’s most proud of is in honor of a veteran Chicago actress Irma P. Hall. Butler earned the award last year in Hall’s namesake for her acting in “I Am Delivered’T” in Dallas, Texas.
“I received Best Featured Actress in a play in a co-production. She is a mentor and friend to me. It’s a great deal.”
Butler has performed in so many productions, earning so many awards, from performances—including Congo Square, Victory Gardens, Seattle Repertory, La Jolla Playhouse, Pittsburgh Public Theater, The Kennedy Center, Steppenwolf Theatre, Arena Stage, Victory Gardens, Peninsula Players, Chicago Shakespeare, Shakespeare D.C., Pasadena Playhouse, Yale Repertory, Asolo Repertory and the Dallas Theatre—but she still enjoys the process.
“I love auditioning and sometimes I get direct offers, but I always audition to make sure it’s a good fit.”
She added: “The minute that I think that I have become the smartest person in the room. I don’t want to be there anymore.”
While referencing “Fat Ham,” which is based on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” she said: “The thing I love about Shakespeare is that he wrote for the community. [And in some venues] Blacks may not feel that we are welcomed. We have to support the artisits in our community,” she said, while encouraging Blacks to become more engaged theatre participants.
Finally, she adds that youth would be better served with an outlet such as the arts in any fashion.
However, Butler recognizes that many school programs no longer include the arts.
“I think that’s what is wrong with our society. Kids don’t have a way to express themselves. But I realize that one art doesn’t speak to each child the same way. There are different ways. Some people are great painters, craftsmen, hairdressers. All come by with some form of expressive art.
“We don’t go to the theater or read books. I believe if you ask a child in the third or fourth grade when was the last time they visited the neighborhood library, they probably couldn’t tell you. But parents need to allow kids’ minds to expand.
“And later in the evening, we don’t have anything to talk about around the dinner table, because everyone is on their phones.”
She added that there has to be more avenues for kids to express themselves.
You can learn more about E. Faye Butler’s career at www.e-fayebutler.com.
Elaine Hegwood Bowen, M.S.J., is the Entertainment Editor for the Chicago Crusader. She is a National Newspaper Publishers Association Entertainment Writing’ award winner, contributor to “Rust Belt Chicago” and the author of “Old School Adventures from Englewood: South Side of Chicago.” For info, Old School Adventures from Englewood-South Side of Chicago (lulu.com)