NED MANNING is a writer, actor and teacher. His debut play, Us or Them, marked the Griffin Theatre Company’s transition from a co-op to a professional company. Other plays include Milo, Kenny’s Coming Home and Tsunami. Alice Dreaming, his large cast play for young people, is regularly performed by schools and youth theatre groups in Australia and overseas. Close to the Bone, developed with students at the EORA Centre in Redfern, is the first play written about the Stolen Generation. Luck of the Draw, a play on the same subject, was performed by Kooemba Jdarra and the Darwin Theatre Companies. He wrote ten plays for Bell Shakespeare’s Actors at Work program. As an actor, Ned starred in the cult classic, Dead End Drive-In as well as appearing in many Australian film and tv productions including Looking for Alibrandi, Mr Inbetween, The Shiralee, Bodyline and many more. His teaching memoir, Playground Duty, has become required reading for anyone embarking on a teaching career. His latest novel is Painting the Light.

SHANE McNAMARA is a professional actor and songwriter. He released his first album, ‘Nasty Habit’, in the mid-eighties and has subsequently performed on numerous albums in his role of Rat in a Hat in the children’s series Bananas in Pyjamas. He also penned the hit ‘Banana Holiday’. Kenny’s Coming Home was his first fully staged musical..