They say good things come in threes, and this is certainly the case when it comes to Adelaide Fringe’s Ambassador line-up for 2017.

For the first time, Australia’s largest arts festival will have not one but three talented artists promoting the event to national and international audiences.

They include Adelaide-born actor, musician and television presenter Hugh Sheridan, who rose to fame in Seven Network’s Packed to the Rafters and will join Nine Network’s House Husbands next season.

Sheridan, who lives in Los Angeles but is in town for today’s announcement, said the Adelaide Fringe was an important platform for artists to attract audiences and test exciting new work.

“I’ve always been a fan of Adelaide Fringe. It’s such a vital part of this city’s arts culture,” he said.

“But it wasn’t until I premiered California Crooners Club at this year’s Fringe that I realised just how much it supports artists and gives a wide range of performers their chance to shine.”

Visual artist James Cochran, aka Jimmy C, will also return to the city he once called home as an Adelaide Fringe Ambassador in 2017.

Cochran attracted worldwide attention earlier this year for his mural of the late David Bowie on a wall in London and will work closely with local street artists for Adelaide Fringe’s Street Art Explosion program next year.

Rounding out the trio of ambassadors is New York’s Adrienne Truscott, who has 15 years experience as a choreographer, circus acrobat, dancer, writer and comedian. Truscott has been a regular at Adelaide Fringe since 2009 and is one half of the vaudevillian burlesque duo The Wau Wau Sisters.

Adelaide Fringe Artistic Director and CEO Heather Croall said the ambassador shakeup was just one of many exciting changes for next year’s festival.

“The 2016 Adelaide Fringe was our best yet, and we want to build on its growing success. We have a new partnership with the world’s biggest festival city, Edinburgh, plus the UK’s largest ticketing company, Red61, will use digital technology to help streamline and integrate the way all groups connect with the event,” Ms Croall said.

“We can’t wait to reveal more exciting plans in the next few months and the official program on December 2.”

See Hugh Sheridan talk all things Adelaide Fringe with our Media Partners, Channel 9:

Whilst in his final year at NIDA, Hugh was cast as 'Ben Rafter' in Australia's highest rating family drama Packed to the Rafters and continued in the role for five seasons.  Following Rafters he starred in the Seven Network telemovie Never Tear Us Apart, based on Australia's most successful band, INXS and in Opera Australia / ABC co-production The Divorce.

Theatrically Hugh’s credits include, the sold out, one man show, Newley Discovered, at the 2009 Adelaide Cabaret Festival.  He then took Newley to the Sydney Opera House and New York's Snapple.  In late 2012, Hugh starred alongside Geoffrey Rush and Magda Szubanski in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  He was recently given a residence at Herb Alpert's Vibrato Grill Jazz in LA.

After signing with Sony in 2010, Hugh released his first single Just Can't Throw Us Away which made an impressive #2 debut on the iTunes singles chart and was followed by his successful debut album Speak Love.  He is currently one third of California Crooners Club which is experiencing sell-out shows at the Adelaide Fringe and winning them ‘Best Music Act’ and ‘Critics Circle Pick’.

Hugh is currently shooting on the Nine hit series House Husbands.

James Cochran, aka Jimmy C, played a key role in the development of the underground graffiti movement in Australia during the early 1990s, and after working on numerous mural commissions and community arts projects, went on to complete a Masters degree in Visual Arts at the University of South Australia.

His interests in graffiti and oil painting converged, leading to the development of Cochran's signature aerosol pointillist style; portraits or urban landscapes painted entirely from dots and dashes of spray paint. Cochran now lives in London and his canvases and walls can be viewed in cities across the world.

His works include a portrait of Olympic champion Usain Bolt, which became one of the key images during the 2012 London Olympic. In 2016, his painting of David Bowie in Brixton became the focus of worldwide attention when it became an unofficial shrine for fans to pay tribute to the music legend.  

For more than 15 years Adrienne Truscott – choreographer, comedian, writer, circus performer and one half of boundary-busting cabaret act The Wau Wau Sisters – has been making genre-straddling work in New York and abroad.

She is best known for her critically acclaimed one-woman show, Asking For It, which she performed at the Adelaide Fringe in 2014. The show saw Truscott dressed only from the waist up and ankles down and has helped reshape public discourse around sexual assault.

Her varied work has appeared at Australian venues including the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Sydney Opera House, and Sydney and Brisbane International Festivals. Her essays have been published in two Australian anthologies and several media publications and she has developed and presented work around Australia and at Adelaide Fringe since 2008. Truscott considers down under her second home and the international Fringe community her artistic family. In May 2017 Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre will premiere Wild Bore, a collaboration between two women borne out of artistic relationships forged in the rich community of Fringe festivals.