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Kerry Butler '92 is no wallflower, but she plays one on Broadway. Well, she plays a character in Hairspray named Penny Pingleton who's, let's say, a bit of a mouse. But only for one act. During act two, Penny, the best friend of main character Tracy Turnblad, undergoes a dynamic transformation during a scene that has stolen audience hearts --- and is likely to be a career maker for Butler. Songwriters Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman gave Butler the chance to create a Broadway character from scratch. "I thought I was doing this tiny part and no one was going to even notice," Butler told the New York Post in an interview. "But now movie and TV producers are calling my agent." It's not that she hadn't already received recognition. Born in Brooklyn, Butler began her acting career at the age of three, appearing in a commercial for Dixie Cups (feeding a hot dog to a dog). She does a lot of voice-over work. Her résumé already includes such Broadway credits as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Eponine in Les Miserables, and Ms. Jones in Blood Brothers, as well as parts in TV movies and soaps. She has also appeared in off-Broadway productions, including the musical comedy Bat Boy (also done at Ithaca College this past season), in which she played Shelley, an ingenue who develops a taste for blood. And she was recently named a cowinner of the 2003 Clarence Derwent Award, which honors "the most promising female and male performances on the New York metropolitan scene." | |||
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