Each night, a 14-year-old tasks two actors with playing her parents. They haven’t seen the script

POV ‘mirrors the way in which you’re unprepared, as a parent, to talk to your kid when crises happen’, says writer Mark Rogers. Photograph: Taylah Chapman/re:group performance collective

One evening in June last year, actor Ewen Leslie rocked up at Sydney’s Belvoir St theatre to find out what show he was performing that night and meet his fellow actors for the first time. All he had was an email telling him to prepare his best Werner Herzog impression, to wear comfortable clothes, and to expect content around “childhood, parenthood and mental health disorders”.

A couple of hours later he was on stage, script in hand, being directed by a 13-year-old in front of an audience and struggling not to cry.