A great play should leave a mark. That’s the mission underpinning the Butterfly Effect Theatre of Colorado (BETC), whose name reflects the company’s desire to put works on stage that stick with audiences long after the curtain closes.
“Our vision is to be a catalyst for a better world. We’re trying to affect people in a way that they can take forward into their lives,” says Stephen Weitz, producing artistic director for BETC. “It’s about changing the way people think, the way they feel and the way they empathize with others by exposing them to things on stage.”
That desire to affect change takes center stage in the upcoming BETC production of Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children, running Sept. 15-Oct. 8 at the Dairy Arts Center. Previously produced on Broadway by the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Royal Court Theatre, the 2016 play loosely inspired by the Fukushima nuclear explosion in Japan tells the story of a pair of retired nuclear physicists who process a similar disaster from their isolated home on the British coast.
“It’s a challenging play, and it asks difficult questions of us in the audience as individuals — and collectively — about how the decisions we make today will have long-lasting effects that go well beyond our lives,” Weitz says. “But it’s not a polemic. It’s really organic and honest about who these people are and how they interact with each other. That, to me, is the mark of a great play.”
Various times, Sept. 15-Oct. 8, Grace Gamm Theater at Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder. Tickets: $25 general / $15 students
