About us
Butterfly Theatre Company was formed in 2011 by Chief Artistic Director Aileen Gonsalves, who has been working extensively across the industry for over 25 years, including many years at the RSC.
At Butterfly we specialise in immersive theatre with a focus on truthful, authentic and moment to moment performance that makes the audience feel something real. This is our passion and our purpose.
Our live, site-responsive theatre productions breathe new life into unusual, extraordinary and beautiful locations. We have performed in many amazing places across the UK and internationally including caves, castles and ancient woodlands, just to name a few.
We also do immersive online shows and workshops as part of our digital programme, meaning we can share our work with anyone, anywhere, no matter where you are in the world!
Through our education and training programme we empower, encourage and educate our students to be responsive and affectible and to find their unique voice and point of view, through creativity and performance.
Our mission
We believe that by creating authentic connection “on stage” and being totally responsive to each other, the audience and our environment, the audience will enjoy a more authentic experience. Why is this? The answer is simple, we as the audience feel what the actor feels, so when the actor is feeling something genuine and real, so do we!
By giving people the opportunity to be immersed in vibrantly alive, responsive and engaging theatre experiences, and by giving our students the opportunity to embrace their unique voice and point of view through performance, we hope to empower people to find truth and authenticity in their own lives and work. Breaking through transactional relationships and finding true connection through experiencing heart-opening work.
Our company name Butterfly and tagline “everything is connected” is derived from Lorenz’s Butterfly effect, the theory that a small and seemingly “insignificant” change in a given circumstance can be the cause of much larger consequences. For example, something as large as a tornado can be triggered by something as minor as a distant butterfly flapping its wings several weeks earlier. With this in mind, there are infinite possibilities in every moment, as we never truly know the effect one thing will have on another. The way we work also resembles this theory.
Our actors and students are trained following a unique method that is rooted in the Meisner Acting Technique, whereby a small change in the given circumstances the actor is working under, can have a huge effect on how the scene plays out. This method, called The Gonsalves Method, was developed by our Chief Artistic Director Aileen Gonsalves and is inspired by Sanford Meisner’s work.
Cause and effect was also something that Meisner believed in, one of his most famous quotes being “you can’t say ouch until you’ve been pinched” - acting is reacting. We apply this principle to every area of our work, we are completely responsive to everything around us: each other, the audience, the text, the sounds, the smells, and most importantly for site specific work, all aspects of the surroundings and the environment in which we perform. It all becomes something to respond to in that moment.
“Insightful, generous and provoking. Aileen’s way of working manages to be both life affirmingly inspiring and down to earth practical. Rigorous and intensive theatre-making with a big smile.”
— Ian Wainwright, Project Producer, Royal Shakespeare Company
“To experience Aileen’s method is to be given tools for life! It’s no exaggeration to say that she is one of the foremost performing arts innovators of our age.”
— Dr Chris Laoutaris, Lecturer at the Shakespeare Institute, and Author