About Us
Ariel Leaf is an actress, lighting designer, writer and director about town. She is a company member of Freshwater Theatre, Wonderlust Productions and Co-Artistic Director of Fortune's Fool.
Ruth Virkus is a National Merit Scholarship recipient who graduated with honors from the University of Minnesota Morris with degrees in history and theatre. Ruth is Co-Artistic Director of Freshwater Theatre, an Ivey Award winning company producing new works by Midwestern playwrights since 2011. Ruth is an accomplished playwright, most recently having written the critically acclaimed historical drama Mrs. Charles for Freshwater Theatre, which premiered in the spring of 2014. Ruth's most recent work, Disorderly Houses, received a staged reading with the History Theatre in St. Paul, MN, as part of their Raw Stages series. She is also co-creator of the Tyme series of novels, with author Megan Morrison. Their second book in the series, Disenchanted, has already received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, and will hit bookshelves this October.
Ben Layne is the other Co-Artistic Director of Freshwater Theatre, and has directed for several Twin Cities companies, including Freshwater Theatre, Fortune's Fool Theatre, Chameleon Theatre Circle, Northern Starz Children's Theatre, Swandive Theatre and Mermaid Productions, among others. As an actor, Ben appeared onstage for various companies, including Freshwater Theatre, Walking Shadow, Swandive Theatre, Theatre Pro Rata, Tedious Brief Productions, Starting Gate Productions, and Theatre Forever.