RAIMONDO CORTESE graduated from VCA School of Drama in 1993. He was a founding member of Ranters Theatre, serving as Artistic Director from 1994 - 2001. Ranters have been regularly programmed in international performing arts festivals and venues since 1999, including developments and residencies. He has written over thirty plays and texts for theatre, which have been performed in over a dozen countries, including Features of Blown Youth, Roulette, St Kilda Tales, The Wall and The Silence, Holiday, which won a 2007 Green Room Award for Best Australian Writing, The Child for MTC and Intimacy. He was the recipient of a 2010 Australian Leadership Award, and was awarded the inaugural Patrick White Fellowship by the STC in 2011. His most recent work was Buried City, an Urban Theatre Projects, Belvoir St, 2012 Sydney Festival co-production and Murder, for Erth and the 2013 Sydney & Adelaide Festivals and Ten Days on the Island. He has also written for film - The Boy Castaways, as well as visual and experimental texts. His fiction includes a collection of short stories - The Indestructible Corpse (Text Publishing 1998). He is Senior Lecturer and coordinator of the Master of Theatre Writing course at VCA, University of Melbourne.