Playwriting Masterclass with Ruth Lawrence & sherry White 
Sunday, March 7, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm (via ZOOM)

This 4 hour session is geared for participants with a two-person script in progress as the exercises will require a base of story knowledge. Participants should come prepared to write during the class. The workshop is limited to 10 participants and is open to women and non-binary artists at any stage in their career.

Participants will be accepted on a first-come-first-serve basis until March 5, 2021. Applicants are asked to submit one short scene (2-3 pages) from their play in progress to aid in the discussion (not for distribution.) 

Email: womensworkfestivalnl@gmail.com to register. The cost of the workshop is $15. 

​Sherry White and Ruth Lawrence are the co-founders of White Rooster Theatre, a company now in its 20th year. Using methods they have worked with to develop their own works, they will concentrate on techniques you can use as you build your play, including a discussion on using contrast and status to strengthen the story.

Sherry White

SHERRY WHITE recently wrapped showrunning Season 1 of Pretty Hard Cases, a show she created with Tassie Cameron.  She was a showrunner and director on two seasons of Little Dog for CBC, starring Joel Thomas Hynes. Previously, she was an executive producer on Tassie Cameron’s ABC drama series Ten Days in the Valley. She was a writer and executive producer on Season II and III of Netflix/Discovery’s period drama Frontier, as well as co-executive producer on Shondaland’s series The Catch. Before that, Sherry was a co-executive producer for the ABC/Global series Rookie Blue, an award winning show she had been a writer on for six seasons. She has also written and produced for Orphan Black, as well as CTV’s hit series Saving Hope.
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Her work in feature film includes writing the award-winning Maudie, starring Ethan Hawke and Sally Hawkins. Other film writing credits include Relative Happiness, Down to the Dirt, and The Breadmaker. She also wrote and directed the Genie Award-nominated feature film Crackie, starring Mary Walsh, which screened at over 30 festivals worldwide, including TIFF, Karlovy Vary, and Torino Film Festival, where it took home the jury prize. It was also named one of the top 10 films in Canada for 2009 and screened at the MOMA in New York City in March 2010.  Sherry has also directed several award-winning short films that played at various festivals around the world.  Her playwriting credits include The House Wife with Ruth Lawrence and The Devil You Don't Know with Joel Thomas Hynes.

Ruth Lawrence

RUTH LAWRENCE is a director/writer/actor in film and theatre. In 2020, her first narrative feature, Little Orphans (Imagine That Productions), a microbudget, premiered in galas across Canada and won the Borsos Competition for Best Canadian Feature at Whistler Film Festival. In 2019, she released her first CBC-TV documentary, Circus by Komatik (Fire Crown Productions) Ruth was one of the writer-directors on the 2018 portmanteau feature, Hopeless Romantic (Northeast Productions).  She directed The Ennis Sisters music video, Shine Your Light, to mark the 100th Anniversary of the CMHA.  Her short films include Talus & Scree and Sweet Pickle.  Ruth co-produced the feature Hunting Pignut, winner of two best feature awards, with Pope Productions. She is the director of the 5-episode webseries, Buy the Boards by Luke  Lawrence and Matt Wright.
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As Artistic Director of White Rooster Theatre, Ruth oversees the production of new works by women playwrights. She is the writer of several plays including Other Women Walk, Mildred Baxter, St. John's the Rancid and has co-written The House Wife with Sherry White, The Lone Randells with Des Walsh, and Greenleaf & Mansfield with Michelle Rex Bailey. 
Her awards include ArtsNL's Artist of the Year, the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, and the 2020 Arts & Letters Digital Media Award for Rigolet: Not Written in Stone.