Stella Ruiz stars as medium Pearl Curran in ‘Writing Shadows’
Ghostbird Theatre Company opens its 2017-2018 season with a special production in the Langford-Kingston Home in downtown Fort Myers. Written by the Company’s Artistic Director and FGCU Professor of Theater Barry Cavin, Writing Shadows centers on a St. Louis housewife by the name of Pearl Curran who began channeling a woman who lived in the 1600s after dabbling with a Ouija board one afternoon in 1913. Local talent Stella Ruiz plays the part of Pearl Curran.
Ruiz has a reputation for playing smart, surly and somewhat mercurial female characters such as the acerbic Daphna in Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews and the brutally judgmental Eva in Robert Caisley’s Happy. Other 
roles include Lucy in Mr. Marmalade, Amelia, Helen, Waitress 3 and Kim in Bob: A Life in Five Acts, Patsy in The Rimers of Eldrich, Desdemona in Othello, Candy Starr in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ophelia in Hamlet and Belinda Cratchit and the Ghost of Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol. Ghostbird audiences will remember her as Antigone in Antigonick. Other notable roles include Nina and Hildy in Relatively Speaking, Katherine in Taming of the Shrew and Hecate in Macbeth (both at Gulf Shore Shakespeare Festival).
Her appearances have not been limited to the local stage. Stella also 
portrayed serial killer Monique Avril in the 2012 indie film Redemption.
Stella has also distinguished herself as a director. She recently directed a limited engagement of Zalman Velvel’s 55 and Over, and people familiar with Lab Theater recognize her as the organizer extraordinaire of The Lab’s annual 24-Hour Playwriting Challenge.
Stella also takes an active, behind-the-scenes role in most of The Lab’s other productions. Her stage management credits include Amadeus, Five Kinds of Silence, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Extremities and Because Beauty Must Be Broken Daily.
A playwright, Ruiz has written four full-length and several one-act plays. She was also a co-author of Lab Theater’s groundbreaking Rauschenberg Project Play, which gave Southwest Florida audiences a glimpse into the challenges faced on a daily basis by teenaged and young adult members of our local LGBTQ community.
Because of her keen mind and analytic abilities, she is often invited by Eric Raddatz and Melissa DeHaven to serve as a guest celebrity at T.G.I.M. 
screenings, where she invariably offers insightful observations that draw upon her extensive film and theatrical experiences.
She’s the perfect choice for the role of Pearl Curran in Writing Shadows.
October 2, 2017.
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About the Author
Tom Hall is both an amateur artist and aspiring novelist who writes art quest thrillers. He is in the final stages of completing his debut novel titled "Art Detective," a story that fictionalizes the discovery of the fabled billion-dollar Impressionist collection of Parisian art dealer Josse Bernheim-Jeune, thought by many to have perished during World War II when the collection's hiding place, Castle de Rastignac in southern France, was destroyed by the Wehrmacht in reprisal for attacks made by members of the Resistance operating in the area. A former tax attorney, Tom holds a bachelor's degree as well as both a juris doctorate and masters of laws in taxation from the University of Florida. Tom lives in Estero, Florida with his fiancee, Connie, and their four cats.