Board of Directors

ANDREA DUNNE - Chair

Andrea Dunne is an up-and-coming theatre and film creator living and working in St. John’s. You can catch her most recent on-screen work on Hudson & Rex season 5 (episode Rexit, Stage Left) on City TV. She was a founding member of the St. John’s Shorts Theatre Festival and premiered three of her short plays there (One Thing, Besties and First Date) from 2016-2018. Andrea has studied playwriting under Robert Chafe and shadowed director Jillian Keiley and has for 6 years been a part of the team behind the annual Women’s Work Festival, which focuses on the development of un-produced plays by women and other marginalized genders. Her most recent play, What is she Wearing? was commissioned by PerSIStence Theatre as a part of their Votes for Women 100 project, and her script Say Yes was a selection of the 2022 Women’s Work Festival. She recently joined RCA Theatre for a short time as Interim Artistic Associate.
VANESSA CARDOSO-WHELAN - Vice-Chair

Hailing from Brazil, Vanessa Cardoso Whelan (she/her) is a playwright, multidisciplinary artist, and clown with a passion for contemporary theatre and body movement. Graduating in Theatre Arts in 2004, she has performed with several artistic groups on stage, and in street productions as an actress, and dancer. Vanessa has been actively engaged in the local arts scene since moving to NL in 2014. She likes to give her art back to the community, doing volunteer workshops and performances for new Canadians/refugees and non-profit organizations, because of that and other achievements, Vanessa received the 2023 Inspiring Immigrant Woman Award from We Care Foundation. Inspired by Nature Vanessa loves the mountains on the west coast of Newfoundland, it reminds her of home.
RUTH LAWRENCE - Treasurer

​Ruth Lawrence is a theatre and filmmaker based in St. John’s, NL. Ruth’s feature films include Little Orphans (Best Canadian Feature, Whistler Film Festival 2020), Hopeless Romantic (2018), and the award-winning comedy feature, Party Pirate (2024) Her documentaries A Lot of Love in the Room (2021) and Circus by Komatik (2019) have been featured on CBC Gem. She has directed, written, and/or produced over 70 short films and webisodes. She was Artistic Director of White Rooster Theatre from 2001-2023 and served as Artistic Associate of RCA Theatre from 2005-2008.

Ruth’s honours include the Joan Orenstein Best Actress Award, the RBC Michelle Jackson Award for Emerging Filmmaker, the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council’s Artist of the Year, the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, the YWCA Woman of Distinction, a WIFT-AT WAVE Award, the national Leslie Yeo Award for Volunteerism, and the inaugural Ross Leslie Award for her contributions to film and theatre.
BERNARDINE ANN TERÁZ STAPLETON - Secretary

Berni Stapleton is a playwright, author, skit-artist, and actor. She was born in North West River, Labrador and grew up on the south coast of Newfoundland. She is one of our province’s most prominent theatre artists and cultural leaders. She has spent her career making beautiful theatre in unexpected places. She is a Siminovitch Playwright Prize finalist, recipient of the Rhonda Payne Award for Theatre. She is the Artistic Director of Girl Power Inc. an indie feminist theatre company devoted to championing the unique landscape of NL, and to advocating queer and gender equity. She has had almost forty plays professionally produced in Canada and beyond, including Ireland, the U.K. and New York. Her plays include Offensive to Some and The Antidote for Life: Memory, Madness and Beagles, an autobiographical exploration of madness in the arts. New works in progress include the feminist queer imagining Ophelia Saves the World from Zombies and the upcoming podcast The Haunted Doorbell. Berni was writer-in-residence at Memorial University in 2019 and has taught an Introduction to Playwriting course there. Her books include Love, Life, with Breakwater Books and the newest yet unpublished Brazil Square about the once iconic boarding house district of St. John’s, and the writing guide How to Write a Play and Have Fun Without Hardly Even Trying or How to Finish Your Best Worst First Draft or Prepare to Throw the Pasta. She lives in St. John’s with rescue beagles Georgie Girl and Tiggy Duff.
KAREN MONIE - Director

Karen Monie is a Cameroonian editor, writer, director and actress whose work spans across film, theatre and television. Formerly cast in Jenna Turk's Remants, Karen has showcased her stageplays Masquerade, Those Left Behind and Aya & the Masquerades at the Women's Work Festival and St. John's Short Plays Festival. Her first short film Common Law
premiered at the 2019 Nickel Independent Film festival. Karen's children's play, Aya & the Masquerades, is set to be produced by White Rooster Theatre in 2024.
ANA LUISA RAMOS - Director

Ana Luísa Ramos is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, performer, educator, and music curator based in St. John's, NL. She has performed across Europe, South, Central, and North America, working in both classical and popular music. Ana holds a Licentiate Degree in Music Education and a postgraduate diploma in Vocal Coaching, with studies in Brazil, Argentina, Austria, and Canada. She has contributed to over 18 albums and released her debut solo album, Um, in 2016. Her second album, Amanheceu, was released in 2021, the same year she won the MusicNL Jazz Artist of the Year award. Ana also performs as part of the duo "Ana & Eric" with Eric Taylor Escudero. Their self-titled EP (2020) and album Our House From Here (2023) earned multiple MusicNL and ECMA nominations. Ana's latest solo album, Solaris, released in April 2024, explores themes of love in Portuguese and English and was recorded across Canada, the USA, and Brazil.
NICOLE SMITH - Director

Nicole Smith is a writer, theatre creator, director, and producer, who splits her time between her homes in Cambridge, Ontario and St. John’s, Newfoundland. Her work as a playwright has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Shaw Festival, Green Light Arts, and Canadian Stage. She is Artistic Associate of Girl Power Inc., co-Artistic Director of the Grand Falls-Windsor Theatre Project, and founding Artistic Producer of Sonderlust, a theatre collective dedicated to the creation of original work and the staging of women's stories. As someone whose mentors have shaped her every approach, Nicole is devoted to making and holding space for new creators of all ages. The Women’s Work Festival has held a special place in her heart since she was introduced to it in 2017.

staff

ANA PITOL - General Manager

Ana Pitol is a Brazilian producer, arts administrator, and mother of little Isabel (3-year-old) based in St. John's, NL, Canada. She has a Bachelor's degree (2011) and a Master's degree in History (2015) and has been a History teacher since 2010. She began to study acting in 2018 and since arriving in Canada (2022), she decided to change her career and dedicated herself to working in theatre. Since then she has been involved and working with relevant organizations in St. John's such as TODOS Productions (Project Coordinator Intern and production manager for Happy Anniversary by Vanessa Cardoso-Whelan), White Rooster Theatre (production manager for The Heart Play by Marie Pike, Song Seekers by Caroline Rex Bay, Ruth Lawrence & Petrina Bromley, and Off Balance directed by Anahareo Doelle and  Krin Haglund and co-produced with Wonderbolt Productions), St. John's Shorts (assistant producer for the 8th Annual St. John's Short Play Festival) and Women's Work Festival (Assistant Producer for the 18th edition). In parallel to these projects, she is the Membership and Communications Coordinator at PARC (Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre). In December 2023, she completed the BMP Producer Academy 2023 Cohort, an 8-week course offered by Beth Morrison Projects in New York, for which she was selected from 300 applicants. Currently, she is the General Manager at Women's Work Festival.