Actor and director Ali Clinch has been commissioned by Lightbulb Improv to direct its latest theatre production, The Family Business, showing at the Canberra Theatre Centre from 31 August to 2 September. Ali has been working as a theatre director and actor for 16 years and has previously been involved with Canberra Playback Theatre, a form of improvisational theatre she hopes to apply to Lightbulb Improv.

Tell us about Lightbulb Improv’s latest show, The Family Business.

It’s based on a lot of the narrative we’re seeing in real life and pop culture – the multi-millionaire/billionaire families with their head of the family and the personal relationship issues that go on between siblings. It’s very juicy. It’s essentially a look at the family dynamic. It’s MacBeth meets Succession, meets the Murdoch family or the Kardashians. It’s got these really interesting family dynamics and it also has the outside characters – the drivers, the bodyguards, etc.

How is the audience involved in the play?

The audience gets to choose a motive for murder and the audience gets to choose who does the deed. The cast gets given the information and they’ve got 70 minutes to reach that moment where the dysfunction of the family become so extreme that it ends with a murder. You don’t know who dies. Nobody does.

How do you rehearse for something that is improvised?

Rehearsing improv is heavily focused on creating a safe space for the actors to give off each other and receive off each other. Lots of quick thinking, lots of faith and just trusting that they can look after each other on that stage. We’re trying to create as much of an authentic experience as possible.  We’ve created three characters and you’ll see a different show each night. The three characters have some back story formed that we’ve been rehearsing with. We look at what are the motivations of characters, how do these characters relate to one another. But we don’t have names for characters, we don’t know what year they live in or what type of family business they run. That is up to the audience.

Is The Family Business a comedy or a tragedy?

It’ll be hilarious. It’s completely unscripted and we don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s just so much comedy and so much that’s relatable to the characters that we’ve started to see surface in rehearsals. It doesn’t matter if you’re not from a wealthy family; you’re going to see the members of your family played back in front of you as the audience … Every show’s got to have a clown for this show to work and there’s multiple clowns that show up. It’s side-splitting when we rehearse, some of the ideas that come up are just so funny. They’re very talented. I’ve not worked with Lightbulb before and it’s been awesome coming into an ensemble that’s so ready to go and excited and talented and full of ideas. Anything can happen on the night, which I hope it will.

So how does it all work?

The audience will be asked at the start in the foyer, and then they can just sit back and relax and watch the way that they’ve voted play out on stage. There will be six people on stage and there are two different shows each night. The cast shifts each show so you’re going to see two different family stories each night. I think it will be a good giggle and a really enjoyable night.

See The Family Business at the Canberra Theatre Centre, 31 August–2 September; lightbulbimprov.com