Psst, hey! Hey you, you wanna see a Sonic the Hedgehog stage play? One recorded at the long-defunct Sega World Sydney, a Sega-themed indoor amusement park that operated from 1997 to 2000? Yeah you do.
“Sonic Live in Sydney” was a stage play the way the hourly performances of Charles Entertainment Cheese animatronics were a stage play at his self-titled restaurants. A recording of the performance was unearthed thanks to the work of games journalist Jackson Ryan at Continue magazine. In the video, he details his efforts to save some of the Sonic statues from Sega World Sydney that had been left to rot in Australian junkyards in the 26+ years since the park’s closure. Though he and his colleagues were unable to rescue the statues, they were able to track down another work of art related to Sega World Sydney, a recording of “Sonic Live in Sydney,” a piece of Sonic ephemera long thought lost.
The play is cringe. There are musical numbers, bad but charming efforts to pull off American accents, a plot point centered on UGG boots, and attempts at audience engagement that seemed to elicit very little response (or the audio quality was too poor to pick it up). There were moments when I actively had to hide my face, embarrassed by period-accurate fatphobia and a late-play plot shift centered on Dr. Robotnik trying to woo Princess Sally—who, because this is her Sonic SatAM cartoon version, is supposed to be around 16 years old. Nevertheless, I love this, not least because Sonic is voiced by a Black woman, reifying yet again the deep, spiritual connection between Sonic and Black folks.
The play is 25 minutes long and was performed at Sega World Sydney from 1997-98 when it was replaced by a puppet show. The folks at Continue have a whole story dedicated to the play and Sega World Sydney which you can check out in their (physical!!) magazine.