Fiorella Ruas’ profile

Fiorella’s writing background is in theatre. Her first play The Pariahs was selected to be part of the ROYAL NATIONAL THEATRE STUDIO’s New Writing Festival. This led on to a commission from the NATIONAL THEATRE to write her second play The Hanuman which was performed at the NATIONAL THEATRE STUDIO after receiving a reading at the CHICHESTER THEATRE featuring Tom Hollander, Iain Glen, Susannah Harker and Sam West , directed by Edward Hall. The Hanuman was nominated for the prestigious George Devine Award by George Devine’s widow and Beckett’s set designer Jocelyn Herbert. Other original stage plays include Chasing Dolphins which was commissioned by the THEATRE OF COMEDY and performed at the CHURCHILL THEATRE and Moonwater which received a reading at the ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY. The BIRMINGHAM REP & BELGRADE THEATRE jointly commissioned her to adapt Thomas Hardy novel A Pair Of Blue Eyes. After receiving critical praise in the National press, A Pair Of Blue Eyes was taken up to the ASSEMBLY ROOMS as part of the Edinburgh Festival where it caught the attention of several film and television companies including MIRAMAX who put on a special performance of the play at De Lane Lea Studios in London. This led on to commissions with various television and film companies in the UK as well as in France.
Fiorella is currently writing on 5 film commissions with partner Jonathan Pett. She is working on an urban thriller Nightcab (draft 2) for Nik Powell and Ian Prior at SCALA PRODUCTIONS(Fever Pitch, Fanny and Elvis…) with attached director Menhaj Huda (Kidulthood) ; a road movie called The Walk (draft 3)for BAFTA award winning producer Stewart Le Marechal and ex. Weinstein Exec Anna Mohr Pietsch at MET FILM ; a black comedy Pyjama Party for Vikki Scott at FARENHEIT FILMS with attached director Robin Sheppard, an adaptation of Chochana Boukhobza’s novel Sous les Etoiles for French producer Sylvain Bursztejn of SEQUOIA FILMS and PERSONALITY’s agency founder Agnes Goldman and is developing a romantic comedy Je t’Aime Moi Non Plus for Alain Benguigui at SOMBRERO PRODUCTIONS (Cannes Award Winning Bord de Mer, Toi et Moi, Mères et Filles) with attached director Frederique Berthe (RTT, Hollywoo)

For Film, Fiorella has also been an adapter (+ additional material) on a comic action movie based on a famous French cartoon (Blake & Mortimer) called M for TELEMA. She has translated feature films for French film companies such as TELEMA, QUINTA PRODUCTIONS and SOMBRERO PRODUCTIONS as well as working as language consultant for UK company PARALLAX and producer Patrick Cassavetti (GREENPOINT FILMS).

Her commissions for TV include : creating a 6 part series about an all girl gang living in Victorian London called The Gilliken Gang for WORLD PRODUCTIONS & BBC TV, co-devising a series of inter-connected contemporary urban stories and writing an episode of Portobello Road for BBC TV and writing a pilot episode of her own series Right Here Right Now for CARNIVAL FILMS. She has also been part of a comedy sketch writing team developing a French comedy series for director Francis Duquet (Un Gars Une Fille, Scènes de Ménages) and TV company SATELLITE PRODUCTIONS called Plastoks.

Her writing background is in theatre. Her first play The Pariahs was selected to be part of the ROYAL NATIONAL THEATRE STUDIO’s New Writing Festival. This led on to a commission from the NATIONAL THEATRE to write her second play The Hanuman which was performed at the NATIONAL THEATRE STUDIO, directed by Edward Hall. The Hanuman was nominated for the prestigious George Devine Award by George Devine’s widow and Beckett’s set designer Jocelyn Herbert. Other original stage plays include Chasing Dolphins which was commissioned by the THEATRE OF COMEDY and performed at the CHURCHILL THEATRE and Moonwater which received a reading at the ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY. The BIRMINGHAM REP & BELGRADE THEATRE jointly commissioned her to adapt Thomas Hardy novel A Pair Of Blue Eyes. After receiving critical praise in the National press, A Pair Of Blue Eyes was taken up to the ASSEMBLY ROOMS as part of the Edinburgh Festival where it caught the attention of several film and television companies including MIRAMAX who put on a special performance of the play at De Lane Lea Studios in London. This led on to commissions with various television and film companies in the UK as well as in France.

Fiorella has also been a script Consultant for THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, THE THEATRE OF COMEDY, LOLA FILMS UK and THE WORKS ( formerly THE FILM CONSORTIUM)

She is represented by Peter MacFarlane at MacFarlane-Chard in UK and by Anne-Sophie Berthelin at Adéquat in France.

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Joined 2nd January 2012.
Last logged in on 23rd January 2014.

Last five observations

To The Belgrade Theatre Company & Birmingham Rep production of A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Jonathan Pett and Fiorella Ruas, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry and Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 16th November - 2nd December 1995: “Review, The Guardian”
To The Belgrade Theatre Company & Birmingham Rep production of A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Jonathan Pett and Fiorella Ruas, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry and Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 16th November - 2nd December 1995: “In 1870 Thomas Hardy, then 30, went to Cornwall to work on the restoration of a parrish church – and later married the rector’s sister in law. A Pair Of Blue Eyes, his first autobiographical work, was published three years later. It describes a romantic triangle involving the daughter of the manse, a visting architect and his mentor, a literary critic. Hardy’s mentor, Horace Maule, killed himself after reviewing the book. In this new adapatation by jonathan Pett and Fiorella Ruas, Elfride, the 19 year old coquette, teases to distraction the hearts and minds of the two earnest Victorian worthies with her capricious charm. Amelia Curtis catches the little girl vulnerability forced on to a strong willed woman as a survival ploy in a stuffed shirt world. The detail is delicious in the playing of Phillip Brook and Alex Lowe as her suitors – the working class aspirant and the dominant intellectual. In Christopher Hynes fluid production, hopping from drawing room to cliff top on the Coventry Belgrade’s stage, is real insight into Hardy’s world.”
To The Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh & The Jacquerie Theatre Co production of A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Jonathan Pett and Fiorella Ruas, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, 10th - 31st August 1996: “You can see why the Ibsen supporters got so excited about Thomas Hardy. Both portrayed women bursting with vivacity and intelligence, burdened by the past and trapped within contemporary moral codes which required them to be accomplished but not educated, conversationalists but not polemicists, to marry and preferably not be heard again. Both littered their work with sexual symbolism. Throughout A Pair of Blue Eyes, in which Stephen Smith, a young architect and the son of a mason, falls for Elfride Swancourt, the daughter of a rural vicar, one is reminded of The Master Builder. Ibsen dealt with idealism and the pervasivenessof the past. So did Hardy, but the tragic triangular relationship of Smith the idealist, Elfride, self-willed and wilful, and Harry Knight the realist, is further undermind by the savagery of the English class system. This adaptation focuses upon the central themes of class, idealism, sex and morality. The production is simple and the acting of Kate Wilton, Paul Barnhill and Steven Elder gleams with precision and is without a trace of the cloying affectation of BBC costume drama. Peter Whitebrook for the Scotsman (5 star review*****)”

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