40 Years After It Hit The Big Screen, MY BRILLIANT CAREER Comes To The Stage

Monash University's Alexander Theatre in Clayton will play host to an original musical adaptation of the legendary coming-of-age novel 'My Brilliant Career' by Miles Franklin, from 18 - 25 October 2019.

This production forms part of the Jeanne Pratt Musical Theatre Artists in Residence program, now in its third year. The program sees a groundbreaking collaboration between Monash University performing arts students and professional artists that aims to create and promote the development of Australian musical theatre.

My Brilliant Career takes us into the world of fiery misfit Sybylla as she wrestles against the restricted life on offer for a young woman in rural Australia a hundred years ago. Growing up in a time when women are supposed to be demure and subservient to their husbands, wannabe-writer Sybylla is desperate to live an independent life, but will she risk it all in hopes of a 'brilliant career'?

Written by Dean Bryant and Mathew Frank, who won Green Room awards for their musicals Prodigal and Once We Lived Here, the score promises a mix of period Victoriana and contemporary pop, bringing vividly to life one of Australia's most loved feminist characters.

Bryant and Frank admit "making musicals in Australia is hard work". With Miles Franklin establishing one of Australia's most prestigious literary prizes, Bryant and Frank agreed it was only fitting that another incredible woman, Jeanne Pratt, instigated this "unicorn" of a program.

"My Brilliant Career is about finding your voice and demanding to be heard. Miles Franklin wrote it as a teenager in the late 1800s, and her heroine, Sybylla, still feels radical. She is a girl with no options who values what she has to say above all else and refuses to be likable. Sybylla represents our country perfectly - egalitarian, no-nonsense, ridiculous, droll and a teller of ripping stories," said Bryant and Frank.

Students from the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Monash's Centre for Theatre and Performance join some of Melbourne's finest music theatre artists and creatives including director, Petra Kalive, to magically bring to life this captivating story that lovers of both the novel and film will enjoy.

Tickets to My Brilliant Career are on sale now. To book or for more information, visit https://www.monash.edu/mlive/whats- on/events/my-brilliant-career/

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