Ruwanthie de Chickera is Sri Lankan playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. De Chickera is artistic director of Stages Theatre Group, an ensemble theatre company that produces socially and politically conscious original Sri Lankan Theatre. De Chickera has a strong belief in the practice, politics and philosophy of ‘devising’ – a theatre approach of collective creativity and leadership that challenges existing structures of authorship, power-sharing and change.  She is an Eisenhower Fellow and head of Research and Writing of the Arts and Cultural Policy Desk in Sri Lanka, a citizens initiative, working towards the drafting of a National Arts and Cultural Policy for Sri Lanka. She currently collaborates with British visual artist, David Cotterrell, on arts projects and policy interventions.