Grug

Based on the much-loved picture book character created by Ted Prior.

About

  • AGES 2 6
  • 35mins

Once the top of a Burrawang tree fell to the ground. Then the grassy top began to change. It became Grug!

Stunning design and beautiful live puppetry combine to bring Ted Prior’s iconic picture book character to the stage in a smash-hit production that sees audiences join Grug on some of his most exciting adventures. 

Suitable for the youngest theatregoers, Windmill’s award-winning production is beloved by generations of audiences the world over.

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Meet the Cast and Creative Team

Sam Haren

Director

Sam is a Creative Director of Sandpit, a company that create immersive, and interactive theatre and personal experiences. Sam was the Artistic Director of The Border Project from 2002-2012, directing or co-directing all of their work during that time.

He has co-directed Ghosts Toast and the Things Unsaid (Sandpit/ Google’s Creative Lab), Eyes (Sandpit) and Skeleton with Larissa McGowan (Adelaide Festival 2013 & Dance Massive/Malthouse). Sam has worked with Australian Dance Theatre as a dramaturg and researcher. He was one of three international finalists for Rolex’s Mentor and Protégé Initiative for a mentorship with Julie Taymor in 2006.

For Windmill Theatre Co, Sam has directed Plop!, Escape from Peligro Island, Grug and Grug and the Rainbow, as well as interactive experience My Room.

Jonathon Oxlade

Designer

Jonathon is an award-winning designer for theatre, film and television. He is the co-creator, production and character designer of the Windmill Pictures and ABC Kids children’s television series, Beep and Mort. In 2023, he won the APDG Award for Best Production Design for Beep and Mort Series 1. He designed for Windmill’s debut feature film, Girl Asleep and won the ACCTA Award for Best Costume Design with a nomination for Best Production Design, as well as two APDG Awards for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. He has also won multiple Helpmann, Matilda, Greenroom and Ruby awards, a Sydney Theatre Award, PAWA award and is a Sidney Myer Creative fellow.

Jonathon has designed for major theatre companies across the country including Windmill Theatre Co, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre, State Theatre Company of SA, Black Swan State Theatre Company, Belvoir Theatre, LaBoite, Bell Shakespeare, Is This Yours?, Aphids, Arena Theatre Company, Polyglot, The Real TV Project, Polytoxic, Men of Steel, Lemony S Puppet Theatre, Terrapin Puppet Theatre, Vitalstatistix, Barking Gecko, The Border Project, Dead Puppet Society, The Last Great Hunt, The Escapists and Sandpit.

DJ TR!P

Composer

DJ TR!P is a multi-award winning producer, composer and performer of electronic music. Over a career spanning 20 years he has built an impressive repertoire of live compositions for his club sets, a variety of high profile events and productions. These include contemporary theatre, dance and film productions, as well as for festival openings, launches and major cultural events.

He has played live at numerous national and international venues, festivals and events including The New Victory Theater (42nd St, New York), Pittsburgh International Children’s Festival, The Tank (New York), State Theater (New Jersey), Super Deluxe (Tokyo), Game On (from the Barbican Art Gallery), MONA FOMA, Adelaide’s New Years Eve’s Fireworks Countdown, DARK MOFO, The Famous Spielgeltent, Ten Days On The Island, Sydney Opera House, WOMADelaide, Adelaide Festival, Big Day Out, ACMI, Federation Square (New Years Eve), Brisbane Powerhouse, Falls Festival and many more. DJ TR!P worked with Windmill Theatre Co previously as the composer for their shows Plop! and Grug.

Tamara Rewse

Tamara has worked in numerous areas of the performing arts since 1997 including as a Director, Devisor, Maker and Singer. She has toured both nationally and internationally. She has also worked as both a performer and puppeteer for numerous shows.

Her credits include Piccasso and his Dog (Lemony S), Mr Freezy (Arena Theatre Company), Grug, Grug and the Rainbow, Beep and Hiccup (Windmill Theatre Co), COOP (Black Hole Theatre) and Tangle, We Built this City, Paper Planet, Tangle Weave, Forest Feast (Polyglot Theatre). Tamara is also a member of Men of Steel and was involved in their self-titled debut work, Men of Steel as well as Hard Rubbish. Her skills include making props and puppets for film, television and theatre.

Matt Crook

Matt is a Flinders Drama Centre graduate, ensemble member of award-winning independent theatre company five.point.one and a Critics’ Circle emerging artist of the year recipient. Matt has appeared in many productions for Windmill Theatre Co.

Rumpelstiltskin (co-produced with State Theatre Company South Australia [STCSA]), toured Grug through China and North America, including a one-month New York season in 2013, appeared in Grug and The Rainbow and The Girl Who Cried Wolf. Other highlights include Volpone (Or The Fox), Between Two Waves, Babyteeth, Pornography and The Give And Take (STCSA), The Front (Adelaide Cabaret Festival), Once Upon a Midnight (OzAsia Festival), The Bureau of Complaints (AJZ Productions), No Hello (Duende), Van Badham’s Notoriously Yours, The Lake, The Share and That Face (five.point.one).

Most recently, Matt starred in Australian film Top End Wedding. 

Dylan Miller

Cast

A graduate of Adelaide College of the Arts, Dylan has worked with State Theatre Company South Australia, Windmill Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company. In 2019 he toured internationally with The Secret River.

Kat Adams

Cast

Kathryn is a 2018 Flinders Drama Centre Graduate, and has developed a mutli-modal approach to devising and a passion for using her position in the arts community as well as her work as an artist to create an open conversation about mental health.

Kathryn has been a key devising collaborator and dancer in Restless Dance Theatre’s shows Intimate Space (Adelaide Festival & Bleach* Festival), Creating the Spectacle (Adelaide Film Festival), Seeing Through Darkness (AGSA), Ecoute Poir Voir (Dream Big) and Guttered (Adelaide Festival).

Kathryn has also worked extensively as a puppeteer with Erth Visual & Physical Inc in Dino Park (Erth, Melbourne Zoo) Erth’s Dinosour Zoo (Erth, Sydney Opera House and Adelaide Fringe RCC). Her other theatre credits include Dido and Aeneas (State Opera of South Australia, Nicholas Cannon), Foolz: The Imperturbable Logic of the Fool, (Zabou Breitman, Flinders University), The Wolves (RUMPUS, Elizabeth Hay), As One (Tiny Bricks, Nescha Jelk), Book Show (Splash Theatre Company), Forgiveness (RUMPUS, Anthony Nicola) and Antigone (State Theatre Company of South Australia). Kathryn has also worked as movement coordinator for Strata/Forgiveness (RUMPUS 2021), as an Associate Director on Hamlet In The Other Room (RUMPUS, Zola Allen) and has led workshops in physical devising workshops to students and disabled people.

Ellen Steele

Cast

Ellen Steele is a theatre maker, performer and director based in Adelaide. She is a founding member of isthisyours?, an all-female collective committed to creating new and unconventional performance. Since their inception in 2007, isthisyours? have created five original full scale works, toured nationally and won multiple awards.

Ellen has toured extensively throughout Australia, Asia and North  America with companies including Windmill Theatre Company (Girl  Asleep, Big Bad Wolf, Grug, Beep, Grug and the Rainbow, Hiccup!), State Theatre Company of South Australia (David Williamson’s The Club (An  All-Female, Three Actor Version), After Dinner, Between Two Waves, Holding the Man, Maestro), Vitalstatistix (Love, Ruby Bruise), Slingsby (Wolf), Belvoir (Girl Asleep), The Border Project (I, Animal, I Am Not An Animal), and Patch (Mister McGee and the Biting Flea, Lighthouse, Me and My Shadow).

As an independent maker Ellen has developed work with Aphids, Terry and The Cuz, Spilt Second and Zoe Meagher for Next Wave Festival, Misery Children and Sanctum Theatre.

In 2019 – 2020, Ellen was recipient of an Arts SA Fellowship, understaking research into cross-cultural theatre making practices in Beijing and Adelaide alongside the development of a new cross-cultural work, The Friendly Games.

Ellen’s latest work See You at the Dance is currently in development and supported by Brink Productions.

 

Antoine Jelk

Cast

Antoine Jelk is an actor, theatremaker and composer based in Adelaide. Since his graduation from Flinders Drama Centre in 2014, Antoine has had the privilege of working with several renowned theatre companies. His credits include A View From The Bridge (State Theatre Company SA) Tartuffe and Long Tan (State Theatre Company SA and Brink Productions), Deluge (Tiny Bricks for the Adelaide Festival), Schmidt (Back Porch Productions) Eurydice (Foul Play Theatre), Eyes (Sandpit), Beep, Grug, Hans and Gret and Girl Asleep (Windmill Theatre Company), Yo Diddle Diddle (Patch Theatre). He also worked as a puppeteer on the children’s television series Beep and Mort (Windmill Pictures).

As a composer and sound designer he has created original scores for independent productions across South Australia.

Ashton Malcolm

Cast

Ashton Malcolm is an actor, theatre-maker and teaching artist, based on Kaurna Country.

She graduated from Flinders University Drama Centre in 2009, with First Class Honours, the Drama Prize and a University Medal. She has also studied intensively with Shakespeare and Company in the USA. In 2020 she completed a Specialist Certificate in Creativity and Health (Children and Young People) with First Class Honours from the University of Melbourne, with a focus on creating interactive theatre in hospital and care settings. She most recently gained all High Distinctions in a Specialist Certificate in Creative Practice in the Aged Care and Disability Sector at Flinders University.

Ashton has worked extensively in children’s theatre. Her credits include Windmill Theatre’s Grug, Grug and the Rainbow, and Rumplestiltskin; and Patch Theatre’s Sea of Light, The Lighthouse, and Yo Diddle Diddle. Ashton is a long term collaborator with Restless Dance Theatre as a performer, devisor and tutor.

Juanita Navas-Nguyen

Cast

Juanita is a passionate actor and creative who graduated from Adelaide College of the Arts in 2020 with an Advanced Diploma of Acting. Making her main stage debut with the State Theatre Company of South Australia, Juanita appeared in Eureka Day (2021). Soon after she was in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (STCSA/Queensland Theatre, 2022) before starring as Zoe in STCSA’s production of Single Asian Female (2022). Other productions she has been a part of include the national tour of Bluey’s Big Play (HVK Productions, 2021), New World Coming (CRAM Collective, 2021), and Theatre Republic’s incubator project Future:Present (2023).

Having Vietnamese and Colombian heritage, Juanita has a keen interest in creating new, inclusive work that is representative of the diverse world we live in.

Highlights from the Show

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY

"He’s like the Elmo of Down Under."

The New York Times

"One suspects the young audience members will remember this amiable little quality show forever."

The Advertiser

"Grug with his wonderful big eyes is surprisingly expressive for a little haystack."

The Advertiser

"Who’d have thought so much fun would come from the top of a Burrawang tree."

Sunday Mail

"Windmill has again created a show in which children can wonderfully discover the magic and the fun and play in theatre."

Australian Stage

"Everything theatre should be: imaginative, expertly performed and completely captivating."

State Theatre NJ

Credits

  • Director Sam Haren
  • Designer Jonathon Oxlade
  • Composer DJ TR!P
  • Puppet-maker and Consultant Tamara Rewse
  • Remount Director and Cast Matt Crook
  • Cast Dylan Miller
  • Cast Kat Adams
  • Cast Ellen Steele
  • Cast Antoine Jelk
  • Cast Ashton Malcolm
  • Cast Juanita Navas-Nguyen

Acknowledgements

Grug is a Windmill Theatre Company and Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s Out of the Box Festival Co-production.

The 2024 regional tour of Grug is supported by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, through Arts South Australia.

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