William Fisher

William Fisher is a professor of theatre at Butler University where he directs productions and teaches Directing, devised theatre, physical theatre, and acting. He joined Butler Theatre after years at Ohio University as head of the undergraduate performance program and Director of the School of Theater. He served on the faculty of CalArts, UCIrvine, and UNC Chapel Hill, as well as teaching at the Ecole de la Ville de Paris - Marcel Marceau, in his own studio, and at the Étienne Decroux School in Paris.

William was trained by Etienne Decroux and served as his assistant.  After leaving Paris he founded Zeta Collective, a company and venue in downtown Los Angeles that focused on new performance work and training.  His research and practice have been supported through the US Information Service guest artist program, the Soros Foundation through the CDU Zagreb, The PuffinFoundation, the National/State partnership (CAC/NEA), Los Angeles CulturalAffairs Department, and the US Department of Education (Title IV).  In1998, William began training with Anne Bogart and SITI Company and maintains a relationship to that work and company. Before coming to Indianapolis, his professional work as a director has been presented at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), TheDubrovnik Festival, The Vienna Theatre Festival, and Kampnagel (Hamburg).

Other international credits have included serving as a Master Teacher and Festival Coordinator at the MKFM - theInternational Festival of Youth Theatre in Pula, Croatia, and directing the OhioUniversity College of Fine Arts Global Theatre Institute study programs(Croatia and London 1997 – 2007, New York City 2008-2010.) William served as a site reporter for the NEA Theater Program, served on the National Movement TheatreAssociation board of directors, and edited its publication MovementTheatre Quarterly. His essay Struggle and Irony / Ashes and Flames appears in the book Words on Decroux,(Thomas Leabhart, editor, 1994). In 2004 along with his with his late colleague and friend, Nigerian playwright and poet Dr. Esiaba Irobi, William organized Performing Peace, an international symposium under the aegis of the Baker Peace Conference at Ohio University. 

William was a Fulbright Teaching and Research Fellow at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts (Reykjavik) Theatre Department in the Theory and Practice Program, with additional research in Oslo, Norway.  Since coming to Butler, he directed and/or devised at least one production annually including Small Lives / Big Dreams, TheExonerated with the Heartland Actors Repertory Theatre (AEA), SEVEN, Tartuffe, Terminal, MadForest, Our Town, Lunar Revolution 2.0(devised), Love and Information, The Man Who…, The Mineola Twins, and most recently Fleeting Full – an evening of Beckett plays performed live during the pandemic which he directed via ZOOM.  Local professional productions include Freud’s Last Session, An Act of God, and The Lyons at the Phoenix Theatre.

Web site under construction: http://www.williamfisher.net

Why I love theatre.

 “When the actor stands up, it is humanity standing up.”  ÉtienneDecroux

Theatre explores how to fill space and time and requires us to have deep reasons for being onstage, for standing, speaking and listening.  While thrilling and delighting us, it can be a means to discover, reveal and challenge who and what we are as human beings, and to try to figure out how to be in the world.

Why I love Butler and Butler Theatre:

The Butler Theatre is housed in the Jordan College of the Arts at Butler where our production season is integral to the BFA in Acting and BA in Theatre degrees. These flexible curricula balance of artistic rigor and breadth of learning while fostering community and reinforcing autonomy and agency of young artists. It attracts serious, motivated, generous, and hardworking students who are as serious about theatre as they are engaged in the transforming themselves and the work and the world. I love that we are able to invite important international guests to inteact with our students, as well as offer experiences abroad and the felxibility in the curriculum to engage in these experiences.   

My background in Physical Theatre, and as a director of devised new work animates the studio and the Mainstage production season where I direct annually.  From devised pieces such as Lunar Revolution 2.0, a new production of Terminal by Susan Yankowitz, Joseph Chaikin and The Open Theatre, and a (re)making project, to productions of scripted plays  Fleeting Full - an evening of 5 Beckett plays. and to direct works of great playwrights including Paula Vogel, Caryl Churchill, Samuel Beckett, Moliere, Brecht, Thornton Wilder, Charles Mee,  Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins, and coming up - Qui Nguyen.   Photos past seasons productions can be seen at   https://www.butler.edu/jordan-arts/undergraduate-programs/theatre/mainstage-season/past-productions/ .  

Butler encouraged me to develop off-campus immersion opportunities in London, New York, while pursuing my own practice as a director internationally, and to invite and share diverse voices with our students including Ralph Lemon, Bernardo Rey,  Susan Yankowitz, Marco Luly, Ann Bogart, and Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins. 

Why I love teaching:

The pursuit of knowledge and experience, based in practice is built on hope. It is a value in and of itself. Through teaching/learning we face our common past, engage the present moment and the profound changes in our culture and our work, to seek to affect the future,  to as artists praticipate in healing  our world by extension ourselves and each other. 

Current Projects:

My creative project  over the last several years has taken me abroad to direct Small Lives / Big Dreams, a 5-person play created by SITI Company. Over the next several years productions are planned for the UK, Iceland, and Croatia.  I am finaliizng  my French translation of the text after a workshop reading  in the summer of 2023 in Paris  with French-speaking actors. 

After a successful London Theatre and Arts immersion program in  the Summer of 2023, I am preparing a summer study intensive in New York that will alrternate with London.