有趣的实习：巴特勒开始认真对待喜剧
许多威廉玛丽学院的本科生和研究生利用暑期的几个月来拓展他们的技能，并通过实习在他们选择的领域获得经验。 这个故事是探索今年夏天学生们参与的一些有趣实习系列的第五篇。 — Ed.
It’s 20 minutes until show time at The Coalition Theater in Richmond, a comedy club mostly devoted to improv and whose motto is “Live Comedy, Dead Serious.”
然而，今晚不一样。 没有即兴表演。 Instead, performers with skits in various stages of completion – the stars of the club’s first-ever Sketch Mike Night – have all but filed in. That’s August Butler’s signal to spring into action.
Butler, M.A. ’14 and in the early stages of her doctoral dissertation in history at William & Mary, glides down the iron spiral staircase that separates her balcony perch from the stage below with a confidence that exudes extreme familiarity.
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有人递给她一张纸。 她在和别人商量后草草写了一两张纸条。 又停了几站后，她爬上楼梯回到阳台。
“I’ve got real-life cues,” she exclaimed to Daphne David. As part of her internship with The Coalition – her 无薪 internship – Butler is training newcomer David to run the light and sound boards.
“I was looking for a hobby, and I decided on improv,” said Butler, who also works three days a week in William & Mary’s 历史 Writing 资源 Center. “I’d done a little bit in junior high years ago and I 真的 enjoyed it.
“I get to take a class for free and see shows for free. I love just being around a lot of very interesting people, getting to talk to them and seeing them in a place where they’re both having a lot of fun but also building community, being part of the arts scene in Richmond. People come from a lot of different backgrounds, have a lot of very different day jobs, yet come together for this one thing.”
She found The Coalition the modern way – she Googled “Improv Richmond.” The club, owned by W&M alumnus Matt Newman ’07, had a free preview night scheduled. 巴特勒去了，报名参加了几个为期八周的课程，并开始参加更多的演出。
“I enjoyed it so much I wanted to do something else with them,” she said. “I wanted to be there more and to give back.”
There’s nary any glamour in much of what she does, like posting fliers in the city. 今天晚上，她比表演者早一个小时到达剧院，打开扬声器和灯，开始播放广告幻灯片，等待提示开始演出。
In the meantime, she showed David and a pair of visitors equipment featuring a myriad of buttons and knobs though in an aside she whispered, “Only two of them 真的 matter.”
今晚有七幕。 巴特勒用一段简短的音乐片段把他们带到了舞台上，在他们结束后，他暂时关掉了灯光，让他们离开了舞台。
It’s a different feel from the normal night’s work. When there’s improv on the stage, there’s improv in the balcony. 有些小品可以持续20分钟左右。
“I have to pay pretty close attention,” she said. “I start looking for a big laugh or a good place to cut the lights. I don’t usually have to do anything with what they do on stage. I just look for a place to cut them.”
坐在舞台的高处，在黑暗中，看不见，她还会紧张吗？
“Oh yeah, my heart sort of races,” she said. “Like last week, a bunch of things went wrong, tiny things I’m sure no one else noticed, but I was like, ‘Ahhhhh, I’m off my game.’ Usually it’s fine, and nobody notices but me.”
Where she’s spontaneous in Richmond, her life back at W&M is deliberate. Butler’s dissertation will examine Russian spiritualist communities located on the West Coast, from California and Oregon to British Columbia. 这些团体在俄罗斯受到迫害，因为他们不是正统派，所以他们来到了北美。
“They are 真的 isolated, so I’m interested in how they pass on their cultural values to their children and maintain this real cultural identity,” she explained. “They are in the United States, but in reality, quite separate from it.”
她的灵感来自两年前上的一门俄罗斯历史课，课上提到了这些飞地。 她将这一点与长期以来对儿童的兴趣结合起来，构思出了这个想法。
Given the subject matter, it’s understandable that Butler might seek some comic relief. 但也有一个深刻的个人原因。
“I don’t know that I’d call myself ‘shy,’ but I have trouble in new situations or with new people,” she acknowledged. “I’m not usually super-willing to put myself out there and meet new people. I think since starting in improv, I’ve gotten a lot better. 我们学到的一件事是，无论给你什么，你都会做出反应。 So in conversation, I just react.”
Butler estimates she’ll need four to five years to complete her dissertation. 一路上，应该会有很多欢笑。