Raimondo Cortese

Raimondo Cortese is an established writer for film, television, fiction and experimental texts.

He is a VCA School of Drama graduate and a founding member of Ranters Theatre of which he was the Artistic Director for six years.

His plays include The Room, Lucrezia and Cesare, The Large Breast or the Upside-Down Bell, The Fertility of Objects, Features of Blown Youth, St Kilda Tales, Roulette (a series of 12 two-handers), The Wall, Affection and Holiday.

His fiction includes a collection of short stories, The Indestructible Corpse.

Raimondo has written for film, television and radio and also teaches dialogue writing at the VCA.

He has also written a number of visual and experimental texts including Variations of the Same, Bruitgrammes 1-77, Vastexts and Heresies.

He has exhibited in group-exhibitions of visual texts in Australia and overseas and has also designed textual installations, including 'SALIVATE' for the Melbourne City Library.

Raimondo's Philosophy

All serious theatre makers crave to glimpse the essential living spirit that drives us as human beings. The audience witnesses humanity beneath all the apparel of social conformity.

Actors have a natural gift at expressing themselves verbally. These gifts serve them well when writing dialogue, devising scenes and developing their own scripts for film and theatre.

In Australia, where actors are increasingly finding it difficult to get work, where the competition from overseas is fierce, the assessment of an actor's worth is often based on a world that increasingly respects the role of the entrepreneur; the pro-active spirit.

It becomes essential that actors know how to make their own work - to write their own scripts, to devise their own scenes, to produce their own stories.

They certainly have the ability; what they lack, most often, is direction - simple processes that might enable them to craft and hone their skills; to let go the assumption that it is not their place to make their own work. Raimondo's Company has also travelled extensively overseas.