Dean Bryant and Mathew Frank have joined forces again to adapt Miles Franklin’s legendary coming-of-age novel My Brilliant Career into a musical, telling the story of the fiery misfit Sybylla as she wrestles with the restricted life on offer for a young woman in Australia 100 years ago.

Luisa Scrofani in a promotional image for My Brilliant Career

An acclaimed director and librettist, Bryant is currently an Associate Director at Melbourne Theatre Company, while Frank is an admired musical director and composer. They met at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), where they workshopped their first musical Prodigal, which was produced at Chapel off Chapel in Melbourne in 2000, winning a Green Room Award for Best Original Score. In 2002, the show premiered off-Broadway in New York. Their other credits include the musical Once We Lived Here, and the hugely successful Britney Spears: The Cabaret, which they created for Christie Whelan Browne.

Their new musical of My Brilliant Career has been developed as part of the Jeanne Pratt Musical Theatre Artists in Residence program, a groundbreaking collaboration with Monash University performing arts students and professional artists. It will be performed as part...