Peter Fitzpatrick is a Professor in the Centre for Drama and Theatre Studies at Monash University, where he has taught Drama since 1976. He is also the founder and Artistic Director of Melbourne Music Theatre. 

As a theatre director, he has staged full public productions of the following plays and musicals: INNER VOICES , LEAR, THE FRONT ROOM BOYS, THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE, CLOUD NINE, AWAY, THE PRECIOUS WOMAN, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, MANNING CLARKS 'HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA' - THE MUSICAL, INTO THE WOODS, THE MAN FROM MUKINUPIN, PACIFIC OVERTURES (Australian Premiere, 1998), JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS, THE HIRED MAN (Melbourne Premiere, 1999), MARTIN AND GINA (Melbourne and Cooma, World Premiere, 2000), CHILDREN OF EDEN, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, THE WHITE ROSE (World Premiere, Melbourne and Singapore, 2003) PARIS (World Premiere season, Melbourne and Frankston, 2004), A NEW BRAIN, PARADE (Melbourne Premiere, 2005), RENT, THE LAST FIVE YEARS, and I SING.

As a cinema screenwriter, he has produced two feature-film adaptations of stage plays, HOTEL SORRENTO for which he won an AFI award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and BRILLIANT LIES, and was Script Consultant on the feature VISITORS.

As a novelist, he is the author of the football crime novel DEATH IN THE BACK POCKET, written in collaboration with Barbara Wenzel, and PROMONTORY.

As a biographer, he is the author of the dual biography PIONEER PLAYERS: THE LIVES OF LOUIS AND HILDA ESSON, which was short-listed for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award in 1996 and for four other national awards.  He is currently writing a another dual biography on THE TWO FRANK THRINGS.

He has published widely as a critic and scholar in the field of Australian theatre past and present, including AFTER THE DOLL: AUSTRALIAN DRAMA SINCE 1955 (published in 1979, but still regarded as the major critical study in that area), two other books, WILLIAMSON AND STEPHEN SEWELL: THE PLAYWRIGHT AS REVOLUTIONARY, and more than fifty articles and papers in that field. His current research interests are primarily in Music Theatre (its history, formal conventions, and appropriate methods and languages for its analysis), and Australian Music Theatre in particular.