Here’s a Sydney Fringe show where the audience interacts with the actors and creates the show. Called the Six-Sided Stage, it gives audiences a window into the art of improvising. Improv is about observing the mind of the performer. It is entertaining to see the seasoned improv actors come up with responses in a chaotic setting with different plot twists and turns called out by the audience.
It is the opposite of a tightly scripted play that has been rehearsed over and over. Improv is where ideas are born and is one of the training tools for actors in both theatre and film, but it isn’t performed for audiences on stage so much.
Read more: Whispering Jack: Sydney Theatre Company 2026 season
Six-Sided State is put on by the Upper Crass Theatre Company, which has been performing improv over the last nine years. In the High Tide Room at the Bondi Pavilion, the performance brings together four seasoned improv actors, working under producer James Hartley. The performers are Linda Calgaro, Jason Dunn, Nicholas Richard and Anne Wilson.
You can’t help but wonder how the actors will play out a character that someone in the audience calls out to them from a menu of characters and locations handed to them. The actors adopt characters on the spot with the help of costumes and props.
On the opening night at the Bondi Pavilion, the four improv actors interact with the arriving audience, asking them questions that determine aspects of the performance. One question was ‘What sort of entertainment did they like?’ The actor, Nicholas Richard, who asked me, gasped when I said musicals.
A few people were asked what the last film they saw was. The audience votes on the theme of the play and the plot from a menu of twelve characters and twelve different locations. The audience, given a giant dice called Princess Di, is asked where the characters will go next. The location determines the characters.
The producer moves the performances along so that there is a storyline. He asks the audience to decide what happens next. It can be nerve-wracking as the characters switch personalities and try out dialogue. These actors from Upper Crass Theatre Company are professionals and their broad comic improv performances stand out more than the material.
The Six-Sided Stage is part of the Sydney Fringe Festival. View the full program here.