About

Dean Bryant is an award-winning Melbourne-based director and writer who moves between plays, musicals, opera, cabaret and, most recently, screen.

Recent credits include The Laramie Project, 5-star smash Candide for Victorian Opera, A Little Night Music at Hayes Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company’s blockbuster hit Bloom, Hubris & Humiliation for Sydney Theatre Company, Giustino for Pinchgut Opera, Show People for Sydney Festival (ABC and SMH pick for Festival Highlight) and The Normal Heart for STCSA. His short film Rhyme Time will be released this year.

A Little Night Music received the 2024 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Musical and Best Director of a Musical, and Hubris received the award for Best New Australian Work. This follows his reception of the 2022 Sydney Theatre Award and 2023 Green Room Award for his direction of the Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company co-production of Fun Home.

This follows a long association with MTC (Associate Director 2016-2019) where his other productions 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. He created verbatim theatre piece Well, That Happened in 2021 to commemorate the return of MTC after 10 months of being shut down in 2020.

For Hayes Theatre he also directed Merrily We Roll Along which followed his production of Assassins, which transferred to Sydney Opera House, as well as their debut production Sweet Charity (Helpmann Award) and Little Shop of Horrors (Sydney Theatre Award), both of which toured the country (Luckiest/Tinderbox). For Opera Australia he directed Two Weddings, One Bride and Anything Goes (also GFO).

He created the verbatim theatre piece Gaybies, which he directed for Darlinghurst Theatre Company. The script is published through Playlab.

Other credits include The Skin of Our Teeth (Victorian College of the Arts), Once We Lived Here (Kings Head Theatre), DreamSong (Theatreworks), Straight (Red Stitch), The Last Five Years, Prodigal, and Virgins: A Musical Threesome (NYMF) and for the Production Company - Jerry’s Girls, La Cage Aux Folles, The Pirates of Penzance, The Producers and Anything Goes.

With composer Mathew Frank he has written the musicals Prodigal (off-Broadway season, York Theatre, Green Room award– Best Original Score), Once We Lived Here (Green Room award – Best New Musical, NYC and London seasons), Virgins: A Musical Threesome and The Silver Donkey as well as the songs for the Amy Winehouse musical episode of Channel 10’s Mr and Mrs Murder. Their latest musical is My Brilliant Career, adapted from Miles Franklin’s iconic novel, co-written with Sheridan Harbridge, premiering at Melbourne Theatre Company this year.

Cabaret credits as writer/director include his smash hits for Christie Whelan-Browne; Britney Spears: The Cabaret and Show People, for Michael Griffiths It’s a Sin: Songs of Love & Shame, In Vogue: Songs By Madonna, Sweet Dreams: Songs by Annie Lennox (Adelaide Fringe Award) and Lucky: Songs by Kylie. Other cabarets include Vinyl Viagra, Liza (on an E),  I’m Every Woman (Sydney Theatre Award), Newley Discovered, Experiment: Cole Porter and Josie in the Bathhouse.

He is worldwide Associate Director of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and is a graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.