Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Shakespeare Dice: As You Like It
Dacha Theatre
Genre: Adaptation, Immersive, Theatre
Venue: Venue 13
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
This IS Shakespeare’s As You Like It, but, unlike the typical RSC fare, this fast-paced production relies on chance for almost everything. The premise — a company of actors all have the entire text of the play memorized but do not know what roles they will play for that day’s performance until an audience volunteer rolls a die. What follows is an offbeat, original, and immersive experience for the audience that brings the text to life in the most playful and joyous way.
Review
Venue 13 is the place to be at 17:45 during the weeks of the Fringe, especially if you are looking for something fun and “artistic”! The theatre transforms into a good ol’ country western hall, complete with a bar (open for business!) on one end. Audience members can sit at tables and at chairs along a wall, while performers mill around talking to them or singing karaoke. The real fun begins, though, when an audience volunteer is asked to roll a foam die to determine the cast for that day’s performance. That’s right — the actors, all of whom have the entirety of As You Like It memorized — do not know which roles they will play until the roll of the die.
Seattle-based Dacha Theatre is celebrating “the unpredictable ride of falling in love and finding yourself” in this immersive production that meshes audience and actor space so well; there is, for example, quite literally a wrestling match that takes place on one of the audience tables. Unpredictability in this show comes additionally in the form of a random choice wheel deciding the order of scenes after playing Act One as Shakespeare (mostly) intended. Thankfully, the screens on the walls display the wheel, so the audience, and the actors, can keep up with the plot, the karaoke songs – performed in-between Acts – and scene changes.
The fast-paced scenes began running as quickly as the actors did from costume to costume as soon as the hour and twenty-five-minute performance began, yet the plot consistently remained clear. The best fun is had in watching the incredibly talented performers (how DO they memorize an entire play?????) work through the text, perhaps improving some of their lines here and there but understanding the context of those lines nonetheless.
Keep your eye on Dacha Theatre in the future. This is a production worth seeing more than once – each performance is going to be different! – and a company that is well worth supporting.
