It’s fitting that we’re sitting in the basement of The Old Fitzroy for Dean, Don’t Dance! Projecting over the sound-bleed of the bustling pub, Dean Nash is telling the audience about doing lines in the disabled bathroom. “Hey,” he reasons over the laughs, “I’m allowed to use them!”

Nash is a writer, songwriter and performer with cerebral palsy, and his autobiographical musical comedy Dean, Don’t Dance! recently won the Commitment & Innovation in Access Award at Sydney Fringe 2025. 

This return season is part of the Old Fitz’s ‘Late Night’ program, in which artists are challenged to stage low-cost, compact work on the existing set of the mainstage show (in this case, John Patrick Shanley’s Danny and The Deep Blue Sea). 

Dean Nash; Dean, Don’t Dance. Photo © Phil Erbacher

This quasi-solo show (Nash has the support of an on-stage Auslan Interpreter, Yasmin Dandachi, and Audio Describer Charley Allanah) is exactly the sort of work that suits the Late Night program perfectly. With a bare stage, a projector and a keyboard, Nash chats to the audience comfortably about his struggles to break into the musical theatre industry.

Nash, who works...