PETER CORTISSOS

Biography

Peter Cortissos is an actor, comedian, writer and voiceover artist. He grew up in the Adelaide Hills living on his parents’ farm in Paris Creek after years of travelling around Australia.

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Graduating from The Adelaide College of the Arts. Highlights there include; transforming into a 90 year old Grandfather in ‘Festen’ and playing Fred in Harold Pinter’s ‘Party Time’ both directed by Michael Hill.

Peter would later train at the John Bolton Theatre School, focusing on Jacques Lecoq's teachings in Vaudeville, Clowning, and Bouffon. Highlights there include his devised solo piece ‘Potato Love’ about a French poet who fell in love with a potato.

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After graduating and with an inclination towards the comedic and the absurd, he became a founding member of award-winning sketch comedy troupe ‘The Golden Phung’ who were regulars at the Adelaide Comedy scene and the Adelaide Fringe Festival and later toured to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In 2014 they released their web series ‘The Golden Phung’

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Peter has worked extensively in children’s theatre touring shows and performances across South Australia and Nationally. Most notably with Splash Theatre for The Water Show, with  Echelon Productions with their show “And the Winner Is..!”, Gaia Theatre and their production of Shaggles and Petrookio directed by Chris Pitman, several projects with spanning many years Inkpot Arts, like From Foothills to Footplates, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Whispering Walls. With Gumption Theatre we developed and toured Prince Pipsqueak.

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He co-wrote and performed in ‘Scaredy Kat’ with Colourwheel productions, a play for young children about furniture who come alive in a young girl’s room and speak in rhyming couplets. Scaredy Kat won the Best Presentation for Children at the 2011 Adelaide Fringe Festival and later was performed around Adelaide and in the Adelaide Festival Centre.

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Peter has worked consistently since 2011 as a children’s entertainer in hospital settings utilising years of clowning and improvisation training and experience, performing in hospitals all over Australia, the UK, and over 30 remote Aboriginal communities, helping brighten the lives of seriously ill children. In 2024 he became a Performer’s Coach working with the SA team and nationally to train and develop future generations of performers across Australia.

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Peter is a passionate creator of theatre. He has worked with Adapt Enterprises on their production of Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. The Duende Theatre Collective with their project’s, Playtime, The Annual Play-off, and Slicing and Dicing! With Foul Play he worked on their debut production of Macbeth and played a witch and Lady Macduff.

In 2023 he co-founded theatre company ‘Zero Theatre Collective’ which focuses on creating original South Australian works focussing on anarchy and community.

In 2024, Peter worked with Belgian company ‘The Captain Boomer Collective’ on their Adelaide Festival Show; Whale, which saw a hyper-realistic beached whale on Glenelg Beach. Peter played a marine biologist who would talk with crowds about how the whale got there, sparking conversations about the importance of whales and the impacts of climate change.

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He regularly performs in the Adelaide Comedy scene as a Stand Up Comic after launching his career in Darwin and performing in the sold out Top End Comedy showcase ‘Laugh it Off’.

Film and TV Credits include Top End Wedding, Stateless, ANZAC Girls, Danger 5, The Golden Phung web series as well as various TVC’s.

Peter has been a proud MEAA member since 2008.