Ad Astra Production
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“Truth, reality, and theatre collide on one stage.”
Step into the theatre—and into uncertainty. Six Characters in Search of an Author begins as an ordinary rehearsal, until six silhouetted figures emerge from the shadows, demanding their story be told. Unfinished, abandoned, and insistent, they carry a truth too unsettling to be contained.
A philosophical duel erupts between the Father and the Director, as each questions the nature of reality, perception, and performance. Around them, the Mother, Step-Daughter, and Son insist on their own experiences, their memories, and their pain, refusing to be simplified or silenced. The actors in the ensemble respond with disbelief and ridicule, intensifying the clash between lived experience and staged representation.
Haunting, provocative, and unlike anything else in modern theatre, Pirandello’s masterpiece invites audiences into a world where ideas collide, certainty dissolves, and the stage becomes a space for questions that cannot be ignored.
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Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello was written in 1921. It is a groundbreaking meta-theatrical work that fractures the boundary between fiction and reality. It begins simply: a theatre company gathering for rehearsal at Ad Astra. But that simplicity is quickly disrupted by the arrival of six characters stepping out of Pirandello’s 1920s unfinished script — the Father, the Mother, the Step-Daughter, the Son, the Boy, and the Little Girl.
They are not actors. They are Characters — abandoned mid-creation, their story unfinished.
What follows is not just interruption, but intrusion. They land on an acting ensemble rehearsing for a Pirandello play, ‘Rules of the Game’ at AdAstra Theatre. These Characters demand to be seen, heard, and realised. They insist that their story — one of fractured family, desire, betrayal, and loss — be staged. In doing so, the rehearsal room becomes a charged space where lived emotion collides with theatrical artifice. The Characters argue that their truth is fixed and undeniable, more vivid than anything an actor can reproduce.
Pirandello asks us: what is more real — the unchanging truth of a Character, or the fleeting, imperfect reality of the actor? As the process unravels, so too does any stable sense of truth. Illusion and reality collapse into one another, leaving us — and them — unmoored.
But perhaps what these Characters seek is not an author at all. They seek a witness.
They long to be seen in their fullness — in their guilt, their shame, their longing. Trapped within a destiny they cannot alter, their suffering becomes the engine of the play. Their need is urgent, human, and recognisable.
Over a century after its premiere, Pirandello’s questions feel strikingly contemporary. We live in a world saturated with competing versions of truth, shaped by technology, performance, and perception. The line between what is real and what is constructed has never been more blurred.
And still — we long to be witnessed.
This production has been built through a shared exploration of that idea. The ensemble has played, questioned, and sat inside the absurdity of the work together. They have shown up for one another, for the story, and now for you.
Our offering is simple: to meet you honestly.
Actors as people. People as characters. Audience as ‘spectActors’. All of us — flawed, searching, and yearning to be seen — telling stories so that, perhaps, we feel a little less alone.
My deep appreciation also goes out to my creative team who helped build the world of the play: my Assistant Director Colin W. Smith, Stage Manager Courtney Farrer, Lighting Designer Noah Milne, Costume Designer Helena Trupp, Costume Assistant Henry-Miller Trupp, Sound Designer Tommi Civili, Fight Director Jason McKell, Dramaturg Desley Martin, Production Assistant Patricia Rosales and the Ad Astra team, Fiona, Dan & Gregory who believed in a play written 100 years ago by an Italian playwright.
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Sexual references
Discussions/depictions of suicide
Death/dying
Use of a prop firearm
Ableism
Depictions of violence
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The Father | Gregory J Wilken
The Mother | Anna Loren
The Step-Daughter | Emma Kidd
The Son | Davis Dingle
The Boy | Auden Ryan & Hank SteeleThe Girl | Ammi Johnson & Tia Godbold
Madame Pace | Lucinda Shaw
The Director | Jonty Hansen
The Leading Actress | Jules BerryThe Dog | Ebony Wilken
The Leading Actor | Nathan Turner
The Supporting Actress | Frankie Kershaw
The Young Actor | Yianni Sines
The Young Actress | Carmen O'Connell
The Stage Manager | Stella PetersonThe Stage Hand | Alex Flew
Acting Troupe | Cherie McCaffery, Brock O’Rourke, Grace Swadling, Liam Olsen
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Director | Heidi Gledhill
Assistant Director | Colin W. Smith
Stage Manager | Courtney Farrar
Dramaturg | Desley Martin
Costume Design | Helena Trupp
Make Up | Cherie McCaffery
Sound Design & Composer | Tommi Civilli
Lighting Design | Noah Milne
Choreographer | Cherie McCaffery
Composer | Lucinda Shaw
Production Assistant | Trish Rosales
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“Overall, this is a challenging production through its respect of the ambiguous intellectual complexity of its playwright’s work. In lean into the metatheatre of the text, Ad Astra does not treat Pirandello’s play as a museum piece, but as a living theatrical interrogation. What emerges is a work that trusts its audience to ponder philosophical concerns that are presented in a theatrically vivid manner. And for audiences willing to embrace its contrasts, confusions and self-awareness, the result is an informed, imaginative and hauntingly compelling theatrical outing.”
Meredith Walker - Blue Curtains | Read More
“Pirandello’s play is mind blowing. The wit and humor in the script was not lost on the audience. The unforeseen twists brought challenges along with a somewhat unexpected climax. Ad Astra’s newest production certainly excites.”
Lilian Harrington - Stage Whispers | Read More
“When you live in strange and dangerous times, it may feel like your survival depends on embracing the surrealism. Which makes today the perfect time to revisit Luigi Pirandello’s classic play.
With more than 20 characters on stage at once – including the gorgeous Ebony as the Dog – it is a unique theatrical experience.”
Stage Whispers | Read More
“The show is mind-bending. It poses sharp philosophical questions, challenges your beliefs about the characters, and ends in an unexpected, dramatic climax. It’s unpredictable at every turn, and left my jaw dropped. If you're in the market for a whirlwind dramedy, 'Six Characters In Search Of An Author' at Ad Astra is exactly what you're looking for.”
Scenestr | Read More
That approach continues with 'Six Characters In Search Of An Author', Luigi Pirandello’s century-old play that spirals into questions of truth, authorship, and reality. Written in 1921, it feels unsettlingly current. “We’re all questioning what’s real,” Wilken says. “Whose truth counts.” Galaxy’s old-world elegance sharpens that collision of past and present. “It lends itself to the classics,” Wilken says, “but we’re not interested in museum theatre. We want to make it live now.”
Walton Wong - Scenestr -| Read More
