Casey Bennetto

Shows

KEATING! - Winner - Most Outstanding Show - Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2005
KEATING! - Winner - Age Critics' Award - Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2005
KEATING! - Winner - Golden Gibbo - Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2005
Northcote Country Soul - Winner - Best Original Music (Cabaret) -Green Room2002
Northcote Country Soul - Triple Nominee - Most Outstanding Show, Best Musical Direction/Arrangements, Best Cabaret Artiste - Green Room 2002
Northcote Country Soul - Winner - Best New Artist - Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2002
Casey Bennetto - Winner - Best Front-Of-House - Melbourne Fringe Festival 2001

Casey Bennetto formed the Drowsy Drivers in 1999 - chiefly as an excuse to have a party and attempt to record a bunch of silly novelty songs. He toured Edinburgh with Jane Bodie's play "Fourplay" in 2000. He won Best Front-Of-House at the 2001 Melbourne Fringe Festival as the FOH of the Store Room. In 2002, the Drowsies reconvened for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival show "Northcote Country Soul". The show was a success, extending its season and winning the Best New Artist award.

In 2005, Casey wrote a song cycle celebrating and satirising the rise and fall of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating. The Drowsy Drivers reunited again to perform "KEATING!" in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival - with Mike McLeish drafted in to play the title role. The show won the Barry, the Golden Gibbo and the Age Critics' Award at MICF, sold out its run and led to a late-night meeting with Mr. Keating himself.

A subsequent one-week run in the Studio at the Sydney Opera House sold out

before opening, breaking the Studio Box Office records three days running. A revamped version of the show is to be co-directed by Casey and Neil Armfield and staged at the Belvoir in 2006, with John Clarke as dramaturg.

Casey is a Scorpio and loves to read about people taking moonlit walks on the beach, but sequesters himself from the great outdoors as much as humanly possible. His favourite food is snacks; his favourite sport is Playstation; his favourite place is bed. He lives in Melbourne and says he'll stay there until he dies "unless I get a better offer, like maybe a real city, you know, New York or something".