PATRICIA CORNELIUS is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist. Cornelius' play Shit was presented at the 2017 Sydney Festival, following its 2015 Melbourne premiere as part of MTC's Neon Season and its 2016 remount at 45Downstairs. Her play Savages won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Drama in 2014 and the Green Room Award for Writing and was nominated for an AWGIE and the Griffin Prize. Over her career Cornelius has written over 25 plays, including: Big Heart, Do Not Go Gentle, The Call, Love, Fever, Boy Overboard, Slut and Who's Afraid of the Working Class? (co-written with Andrew Bovell, Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Reeves and Irine Vela). Her prizes for stage work include the 2011 Victorian and NSW Premiers' Literary Awards, the Patrick White Playwright's Award, the Richard Wherrett Prize, the Wal Cherry Award and nine AWGIE Awards for stage, community theatre, and theatre for young people. She won the prestigious Australian Writers' Foundation Playwriting Award in 2015 as well as the Patrick White Fellowship (2012), and a Fellowship from the Australia Council's Theatre Board. Cornelius has won the AWGIE Major Award three times. Cornelius is a founding member of Melbourne Workers' Theatre. Cornelius co-wrote the feature film adaptation Blessed, based on the play Who's Afraid of the Working Class? (for which she won an AWGIE Award) and she is developing a feature film with director Catriona McKenzie with Screen Australia funding. Cornelius wrote the novel My Sister Jill (Random House) and many of her plays are published by Currency Press. In February 2018, Corenlius' play In the Club premiered at the State Theatre Company of South Australia, and in May, her The House of Benarda Alba adaptation premiered at the Melbourne Theatre Company.
