Butler is originally from the Bahamas. He is named after his father Ronnie Butler, Sr., a calypso singer, songwriter, and recording artist. As a child, Butler sometimes performed with his father. Butler grew up partly in the United States and partly in the Bahamas. He attended high school in the Bahamas and graduated magna cum laude from Trinity International University near Chicago, Illinois, receiving a B.A. in History and Economics in 1985. Butler worked as an economic consultant for a law firm based in Washington, D.C., before beginning his acting career. While in Washington, Butler studied acting privately with Vera Katz of Howard University and performed in regional theatre around Washington. Later, he studied with David Mamet, William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman, Scott Zigler and Robert Bella of the Atlantic Theater Company.
Career
Butler became a member of the Off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company in New York City in 1991, the same year that he appeared in the film Homicide. With Atlantic, he has performed in, among other works, Once in a Lifetime. Among other Off-Broadway and regional theatre roles, he played Bunker and other roles in a revival of Merrily We Roll Along with the York Theatre Company in 1994. He then sang in a swing band, The Solicitors, in Europe for some years. In 2007, he played Henry in the concert production of South Pacificat the Hollywood Bowl with Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell. He appeared in the 2004 HBO film Everyday People, as Ron Harding, for which he won an IFP Award for Best Breakout Performance. He also appeared in the films Smother and Rain. He played Oscar, the clever receptionist for Mad Style, on the television seriesTrue Jackson, VP, from 2008 to 2011. He was in the Hollywood Bowl production of South Pacific. He plays Vice Principal Lewis on the web seriesFirst Day. He has guest-starred in such TV shows as Without a Trace, Crossing Jordan, Boston Legal, How I Met Your Mother, Scrubs, Ugly Betty, Medium, Dirty Sexy Money and in the first episode of the of Torchwood entitled "The New World". Butler also writes and performs sketch comedies. President Barack Obama is one of his most noted characters. In October 2010, he released a YouTube video, as Obama, singing a pastiche of the "Major-General's Song" that affectionately lampooned the President. The video was widely distributed on the internet.
