Spinning Into Butter

Spinning Into Butter is a play by the American playwright Rebecca Gilman. The play debuted at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 1999. It was later produced at the Lincoln Center and the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, was named one of the best plays of 1999 by Time, and eventually became the third-most-produced play of the 2000-01 season.

The play takes place at fictional Belmont College, a mostly-white liberal arts school in Belmont, Vermont. The curtain opens on Sarah Daniels, Dean of Students, talking with sophomore Patrick Tyler Chibas. Wanting Patrick Tyler to receive a scholarship for minority students, Sarah convinces him to mark his ethnicity as Puerto Rican, even though he considers himself to be "Nuyorican," which is not a university-recognized ethnicity at Belmont.

The next scene shows Professor Ross Collins, Head of Humanities Burton Strauss, and Dean Catherine Kenny waiting to have a meeting with Sarah. When Sarah comes in, she tells them that freshman Simon Brick, one of the few African-American students, has started receiving hateful, racist notes. The all-white administration scrambles to contain the problem and reassure parents that everything is under control. Strauss proposes scheduling a meeting to discuss racism. Ross and Kenny agree that this is a good idea. However, Sarah wants to talk to Simon before holding a campus-wide meeting. She suspects that he would be embarrassed if other students knew about the notes.

Two weeks later, senior Greg Sullivan comes to Sarah's office. He has been inspired by the race forum and asks her about forming a student group called "Students for Tolerance". Sarah thinks this is a great idea.

Ross informs Sarah that there will be a second meeting to discuss race. She found the first meeting unproductive and suggests that the next one have some effect beyond a lot of white people discussing how bad racism is. Burton comes in and informs them that Greg Sullivan has asked him to sponsor the Students for Tolerance organization.

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