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Monday 15 July
Tuesday 16 July

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Get up close with acclaimed writers Dean Bryant and Jean Tong as they discuss their new musicals premiering this year. A must-attend Q&A session for insights into their creative processes and what it takes to create a new musical in Australia.

DEAN BRYANT
Dean Bryant is an award-winning writer/director of musicals, plays, opera, cabaret and screen. He most recently won the Sydney Theatre Award for his direction of A Little Night Music (also Best Musical, Hayes Theatre) and stewarding the winner of Best New Australian Work, Lewis Treston’s Hubris & Humiliation(Sydney Theatre Company).  

Recent credits include The Laramie Project (AAA/Tectonic), Candide (VO), Bloom (MTC), Giustino (Pinchgut), The Normal Heart (STCSA), Show People and It’s A Sin: Songs of Love and Shame (both Sydney Festival) and Fun Home (STC/MTC, Sydney Theatre and Green Room awards).  

Dean was Associate Director at Melbourne Theatre Company 2016-2019 where his other credits include Torch the Place, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Lady in the Van, An Ideal Husband, Wild, Vivid White, Born Yesterday, Skylight, I’ll Eat You Last and Next to Normal. Other credits for Hayes Theatre include Merrily We Roll Along, Assassins, Little Shop of Horrors  (Sydney Theatre Award) and Sweet Charity (Helpmann Award). For Opera Australia, Two Weddings, One Bride and Anything Goes (and GFO) as well as directing for Darlinghurst Theatre, Red Stitch, VCA and The Production Company 

With composer Mathew Frank he wrote Green Room Award-winning musicals Prodigal and Once We Lived Here, and Virgins: A Musical Threesome, The Silver Donkey, songs for Mr & Mrs Murder and, with Sheridan Harbridge, an adaptation of My Brilliant Career which premieres at MTC this year. Dean created many solo shows, including smash-hit Britney Spears: The Cabaret, as well as verbatim plays Gaybies and Well…That Happened and made his film directing debut with short Rhyme Time. 


JEAN TONG
Jean is a bunch of gay little ferrets operating a human skin suit writing/directing various things for stage & screen to make you giggle, weep, scream, think, and piss yourself - or at least watch with horrified fascination for approx. 30 to 120 mins at a time. Blame the ferrets.

Jean’s upcoming work includes MASC UP on Lingo Pictures/SBS anthology EROTIC STORIES and Season 2 of Netflix’s HEARTBREAK HIGH. Griffin Theatre and Hayes Theatre Co will also present the world premiere of FLAT-EARTHERS: THE MUSICAL (written with Lou Wall and James Gales) in 2024. Jean is currently the Playwriting Fellow at Melbourne Theatre Company. 

Jean’s previous credits include SAFE HOME (SBS/Kindling Pictures) and S2 of 100% WOLF (Flying Bark/ABC). they were also the Script Co-ordinator for NEW GOLD MOUNTAIN (Goalpost Pictures/ SBS). Their previous plays include HUNGRY GHOSTS (Melbourne Theatre Company) and smash-hit musical ROMEO IS NOT THE ONLY FRUIT which was nominated for Best Writing and Best Ensemble (Green Room Awards 2019). 

In 2020, jean was a Philip Parson’s Writing Fellow at Belvoir Theatre. They were Development Assistant at Goalpost Pictures from 2019 to 2021.
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