Ruwanthie de Chickera

Ruwanthie de Chickera is a playwright, screen writer, theatre director and cultural activist. She is head of Research and Writing of Sri Lanka’s Arts and Cultural Policy Desk, a citizen’s initiative to draft a National Cultural Policy. This initiative has been endorsed and mandated by the Sri Lankan Government. An Eisenhower Fellow, Ruwanthie’s plays and films have been shown in several countries. Her first screenplay, Machan, won 11 international awards, including Best Film at the 2008 Venice Film Festival (Last Days Section). She is the Artistic Director of Stages Theatre Group, one the most respected cutting edge theatre companies in Sri Lanka. Ruwanthie is deeply interested in the politics of culture, religion, sexuality, education, violence and art and how these impact on the personal and the public. She has a strong belief in the practice, politics and philosophy of ‘devising’ – a theatre approach of collective creativity and leadership that she

finds to be a profoundly challenging alternative to the existing structures of power sharing and change. She has an Honours Degree in English Literature from the University of Colombo
and a MA in Applied Theatre from the University of Manchester.