Ruth Barrett – Writer

Blown Away
Downton Abbey S3 
Fortitude 
Love On The Spectrum S1 
Michelle Wolf: Joke Show 
Next In Fashion S1 
Rebelle 
Rhyme Time Town S1 
Rhyme Time Town Singalongs S1 
Santa In Training 
Schulz Saves America S1 
Scrooge: A Christmas Carol 
Social Distance S1 
Taking a Shot At Love 
The Social Dilemma 
Wedding Every Weekend 
Win The Wilderness S1 

AD Writer for Descriptive Video Works 

After graduating from Trent University with a BA (Honours) in English Literature (including a year abroad at The University of Leeds, UK), Ruth went on to study Classical Acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in London, UK. She then spent many years in Toronto pursuing an acting career, with lots of stage-work, sketch comedy, bits of TV and film, and plenty of voice-over work– notably as the voice of Creakie, the little blue monster in Treehouse TV’s Wee 3. Switching her creative focus to writing (another lifelong passion), Ruth studied with Peter Carey through the Humber School for Writers, and published a number of short stories in various publications before indie-publishing her first novel, Base Spirits, a ghostly thriller with an historical core. In 2019, Ruth studied at the University of Oxford’s Creative Writing Summer School, where she lived in residence at Exeter College and walked in the very footsteps of J.R.R. Tolkien and Philip Pullman. Ruth is currently working on a new fiction project, Haresmoor, with the help of a wonderful online community at The Novelry. 

After a brief stint in closed-captioning, Ruth has been working in audio description since late 2009 when a former colleague from voice-over days asked if she’d like to train as a description writer with AMI. During her time there, she wrote description for many TV series, including: the classic Perry Mason, CSI: NY, For Rent, Sarah’s House, Danger Bay, Da Vinci’s Inquest, Traders, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Bomb Girls. Film description included a wide range of movies such as Backdraft, The Shop Around the Corner, Lethal Weapon II, A Fish Called Wanda, Postcards from the Edge, Hanover Street, The Courageous Heart of Irene Sendler and Les Misérables. Also, with AMI in partnership with the CBC, Ruth was part of a ground-breaking live broadcast of Kate and William’s Royal Wedding in 2011, when she paired up with another narrator to provide live audio description for the entire 6-hour broadcast. 

In happier times, Ruth is a live audio describer with the Stratford Festival (since 2012), where she conducts pre-show touch-tours, and both writes and performs live description for everything from Shakespeare to musicals (and everything in between) over the years, including King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, Othello, A School for Scandal, Treasure Island, Private Lives and An Ideal Husband; and the ultra-challenging but fun musicals, Billy Elliot, Guys and Dolls, 42nd Street, The Music Man, The Man of La Mancha, A Chorus Line and The Sound of Music. Ruth especially loves theatre description, as it’s a perfect marriage of her performance background and her writing skills– and best of all, she makes a point of meeting and greeting patrons after the shows to connect and get feedback. That means the world. 

Ruth joined Descriptive Video Works team in 2018 (see credit list), and is thrilled to be involved with such a great and supportive company. She works hard to continually hone and fine-tune her description-writing skills to be the very best they can be.