Even though she’d always dabbled in creative writing, Kendall Sherwood didn’t find her true form of expression until she took playwriting courses at Clemson.
Always performing, Kendall Sherwood ’09 found her passion for writing in the classroom and has taken it all the way to LA
By Glenn Hare | Brooks Center for the Performing Arts
Production studies in performing arts alumna Kendall Sherwood gets a bit embarrassed when her parents tell how their daughter made up her own bedtime stories at night. Little did they realize the creativity they witnessed so many years ago would become her life’s pursuit.
“I’ve always been a creative person,” said Sherwood, who finished Clemson in 2009. “I guess making up bedtime stories was the only way I could express my imagination at the time.”
Throughout her childhood Sherwood pursued that creativity, participating in theater projects during her middle and high school years. The Georgia native fondly remembers landing her first role.
“It was the first school production where everyone didn’t get a part. I was in sixth grade,” she said. “It was my first competitive audition, and I was so excited to get a part.”
At Clemson, Sherwood was a very active Clemson Player. She utilized her talents behind the scenes, serving as a director and stage manager on several productions like “The Vagina Monologues” and the musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Two Gentlemen of Verona.”
In the classroom, Sherwood also earned high marks and received several awards for her academic accomplishments. She was the recipient of the Arthur and Myra Fear Theatre Arts Award, the Vincent Theatre Scholarship, the Philip H. Prince Scholarship for Academic Excellence and the Department of Performing Arts Theatre Excellence Award.
More importantly, it was in the classroom where she found her passion for writing.
“I’ve always dabbled in creative writing, but I didn’t find my true form of expression until I started taking playwriting courses at Clemson,” she said.
Sherwood also credits the experience she gained while working at WordBRIDGE, Clemson’s summer playwriting laboratory, where writers of every level are assisted in transforming their words into stage action. “My work with WordBRIDGE has a lot to do with why I’m at Northwestern,” she added. “It was a great experience.”
Currently, Sherwood is pursuing a graduate level degree at Northwestern University in Chicago. The Master of Fine Arts in Writing for the Screen and Stage program is designed to train the next generation of writers and producers for television, screen and stage. The program provides a broad and deep understanding of media writing, familiarity with production concepts, equipment and techniques, as well as an understanding of the connections of all media.
As part of her course work, Sherwood spent last spring in a playwriting seminar with Rebecca Gilman, the award-winning author of such plays as “Spinning into Butter” and “Boy Gets Girl.” Another course was Writing the Feature Length Comedy Film. Her classes met once a week for three hours. Class time usually was spent workshopping and critiquing ideas. When not in class, Sherwood spent several hours each day writing or seeking advice from her cohorts.
“It was a busy quarter,” she said. “In about two months, I wrote a full-length film, two plays, half of a television pilot, as well as several other short pieces.”
For her summer break, Sherwood moved to the heart of the entertainment industry — Los Angeles. While on the West Coast she worked as a writing intern on the award-winning television show “The Closer.” The crime drama airs on the TNT network and stars Kyra Sedgwick, who recently won an EMMY Award for her acting.
The internship, sponsored by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, gave Sherwood the opportunity to work with the show’s eight-member writing team.
“I attended meetings, documented their conversations and observed the collaborative writing process,” she said.
But it’s not all work for Sherwood, who admits spending time with other Clemson Tigers who live in the Windy City. “We get together for football games and we try to play trivia regularly. It’s great to have a really strong support system waiting for you in a big city, especially after growing up in a small Southern town.”
This fall, she will begin her thesis project, teach a screenwriting class to undergraduate students and tackle her own course work. As for life after graduate school, Sherwood’s not sure if she’ll pursue a career in TV writing or playwriting.
“I’m definitely interested in TV,” she said, “but for now I’m trying to determine the best way to pursue and balance both.”