With its mad patchwork of architecture and businesses, the Annandale stretch of Parramatta Road is a neat representation of the road in its entirety.

It’s where the everyday meets the bizarre in a quiet collusion: a clock repairs business neighbours a Chinese medicine shop that also does tax returns; antique furniture stores and vintage record shops nestle next to brothels (conspicuous in their inconspicuousness).

There are classic pubs, skate and motorbike shops and the eclectic Recycling Works that sells everything from old wooden ladders to wrought iron planters.

But there’s also the other, unfortunate, fact of Parramatta Road: empty shop fronts. Peer through the windows or look up at faded signage and you see the past lives of shops selling guitars or mattresses, of a tattoo parlour or an upholsterer. And it’s some of these spaces that will be brought back to life when the Sydney Fringe Festival comes to town this month with Off Broadway: a new cultural precinct for the Inner West neighbourhood.

During the Fringe, the strip – which runs between the Empire and Annandale hotels – will be animated with pop-up activity and performances. You’ll find a rich and varied program at the festival hub, artist studios and galleries, an alternative reality game and even an ex-X Files actor doing improv (but more on that later). The Fringe is working with existing businesses in the vicinity to amp up their offerings too and, if all goes to plan, cultural activity will continue to grow on a grass-roots level after the festival ends.

The Off Broadway initiative was launched by Inner West council (the amalgamation of Ashfield, Marrickville and Leichhardt councils) as a way of rejuvenating parts of Parramatta Road, and it has asked Sydney Fringe Festival to kick off the action. Director of the Fringe, Kerri Glasscock, knows that these things can’t be too finely orchestrated. “It’s something that’s going to build over time organically, and it has to,” she says. “The council can’t say ‘this is now going to be a creative arts precinct!’ and lock down what they think it should be.”

But rather, by working closely with the council to place new tenants in these empty shop fronts and by shining a light on all that’s good about Parramatta Road, Glasscock is hoping that like will attract like. That independent artists and creative professionals will be encouraged to take a punt and set up cultural spaces and facilities. She herself is a driving force behind artist-run performance spaces Venue 505 in Surry Hills and the Old 505 Theatre in Newtown.

“It’s really about opening the conversation up more than anything,” Glasscock says. Highlighting the cheap rent, good transport links and supportive council, the road’s creative underbelly and its musical past. “We know it’s got stuff going on,” she says.

“It might be slightly underground. It might be that we’ve just all forgotten about it. Or it might just be ingrained in the concrete, in that the Annandale [Hotel] used to be the heart of rock and roll. There’s such a great vibrant history there that’s in the bones of all those spaces. I think it’s got a lot going for it and I’m hoping the creative community embraces it and chooses to go and work there.”

One artist who’s already sold is Canadian comedian Dean Haglund, otherwise known to X-Files fans as Richard “Ringo” Langly. In recent years, he’s been busy touring his show X Files Improv and is now based in Sydney. Every Thursday and Friday night during the Fringe, you’ll find him running a Comedy Lab at the Wayward Brewing Pop-up: hosting and performing stand-up comedy and improv. If all goes well, he’ll then take on the upstairs space at the bar as a permanent spot, imagining it as a “Comedy Store for improvisation”.

“I do a lot of improv, and it seemed that a lot of the improvisers here said that there was nowhere to perform, that they had no venue,” he says. “So that shocked me; Sydney having such a vibrant, artistic community. So when Kerri was spearheading the idea of turning all those vacant store fronts up Parramatta Road into theatre [and cultural] spaces, I thought it was a lovely opportunity.”

“Really it’s just a big calling card to all the creative community, saying this section is open for business,” says Glasscock. “Don’t forget about it. There are affordable spaces here, there are vibrant things going on that you just don’t even know about because you just have your blinkers on when you go down Parramatta Road.”

The Sydney Fringe Festival runs from 1 to 30 September. The Off Broadway launch party is on 11 September.