Student wins set design award for 'The Tempest'

Matthew Buttrey, a non-traditional junior at Southeast Missouri State University, was awarded with an Undergraduate Scenic Design Award presented at the Southeastern Theatre Conference's 65th annual convention for his set design work on William Shakespeare's "The Tempest."

Buttrey attended the conference along with five other Southeast students. The convention is one of the largest theater conferences in the United States. Students receive awards based on skills within their areas of study.

This year's convention was judged by Donyale Werle, the Tony award-winning designer for Peter and the Starcatcher. Buttrey still looks back and cannot believe he won.

"I remember they announced third place and I was like 'Oh, that's cool, I'm just glad I got to be critiqued.' And then second place they said from Southeast Missouri State University, and I just said 'Shut the front door!' Like I just couldn't believe it. It was pretty cool," Buttrey said.

The design competition was divided between two levels, graduate and undergraduate. From there it was split into several categories -- scenic design, costume design, property design and lighting design. According to Buttrey, in order to be judged for their work the students had to fill out an application, create an artist statement and bring models representing their work for judges to observe. The design itself took Buttrey a little over a month to complete.

"It was a great experience. You get a lot of great feedback, stuff that I have to work on obviously," Buttrey said. "What they really enjoyed and what she [Donyale Werle] really appreciated was the energy I created with this design and just the dynamic qualities of it."

The conference took place March 5-9 in Mobile, Ala. The event was sponsored by Sculptural Arts Coating and helped Buttrey meet individuals within his field. According to Buttrey, the award is a great resume builder and an even better talking point during interviews.

While designing, Buttrey considered the sights he had seen throughout his travels while working for Feld Entertainment's "Disney on Ice" for 16 years.

"Well, I've been very fortunate to be able to travel with the job I had before skating with 'Disney on Ice' and I would always see as much theater or live performance I could, wherever I was. Even in Europe when I traveled there I just wanted to take it all in. It was those experiences that I would try to apply to this," Buttrey said.

Prior to his work with Feld Entertainment's 'Disney on Ice' Buttrey had already been a student at Southeast for two years pursuing a general theater degree.

He had been skating since he was 7 years old and after auditioning for 'Disney on Ice' while in college, he was offered a contract. He then decided the opportunity was too great to pass up. After accomplishing quite a lot at Feld Entertainment, he decided 16 years later it was time to finish what he had started at Southeast.

"Although I loved every minute of it, I still felt myself getting further away from what my original passion was and that's set design and theater. So I thought this was a great opportunity. I had seen what I wanted to see -- I traveled, I worked my way up in the company and now I thought "OK, this is a great transitional time for me right now,"' Buttrey said.

Now majoring in technical theater design, Buttrey has a total of 11 graduate schools he is considering.