About
- AGES 8 108
- 110mins
- Strobe effects
Spinning straw into gold is a party trick that will take you far. It can buy you a big house full of beautiful things, a wardrobe of designer clothes and a life of total luxury, but money, as they say, can’t buy you…
Two people, once best friends, torn apart by desire for the things they cannot have. This is the story of the ultimate price of greed.
The exquisitely mercurial Paul Capsis stars as a shape-shifting imp whose thirst for vengeance may well bring him undone.
He joins the team that brought you award winning Pinocchio, as they take on a new and equally fantastic fairytale, with their unique brand of theatrical spectacular, rocking music and supreme silliness.
Full of twists and turns, it’s a whole new spin on a heart of gold.

Rumpelstiltskin
Meet the Cast and Creative Team
Rosemary Myers
Under Rose’s leadership as Artistic Director, Windmill creates and presents work inspired by the vibrancy, sophistication and inventiveness of young people and the exhilarating challenges they pose to creating theatre of relevance in this modern time.
Rose is a multi-Helpmann Award nominated director, her productions regularly visit leading stages and festivals around Australia and the world, including the Sydney Opera House, Hong Kong’s Arts and Leisure Centre and New York’s New Victory Theatre. Her directing credits for Windmill include Rumpelstiltskin, Pinocchio, The Wizard of Oz, Fugitive, School Dance, Big Bad Wolf and Girl Asleep.
Prior to Windmill, Rosemary was the Artistic Director of Arena Theatre Company and Artistic Director of Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s Out of the Box Festival in 2010. In 2015, she directed her first feature film Girl Asleep with Windmill Theatre Co, and in 2017 she was awarded the prestigious Australia Council Theatre Award.
Julianne O'Brien
Julianne is a playwright with numerous stage and screen credits including Blue Heelers (Southern Star) and Backberner (ABC-TV Sydney). She consults as a dramaturg for theatre companies throughout Australia and lectures in story design at Victoria University.
Julianne also teaches comedy writing for Swinburne University and writes features for The Age. Julianne was dramaturg on the Arena Theatre multimedia trilogy Autopsy, Mass and Panacea, which won the 1999 ASSITEJ President’s Award for Best in the World, presented in Norway. Both Autopsy and her highly acclaimed first play, The Women There, have toured Canada as invitees of major theatre festivals. Julianne wrote Arena Theatre’s Eat Your Young that toured to Taiwan and Australian capital cities. For Windmill Theatre Co, she has written Pinocchio and Rumpelstiltskin.
Paul Capsis
Spanning an extensive career, Paul is best known as a theatre, concert and cabaret performer. His theatre highlights include Angela’s Kitchen, Little Bird, The Threepenny Opera, Boulevard Delirium, Three Furies, The Rocky Horror Show and All About My Mother.
He has worked on these productions with various state and independent theatre companies throughout Australia. Paul has also worked extensively internationally including in New York, London, Vienna, Shanghai and Hong Kong. He appeared in a leading role in the Australian feature film The Boy Castaways, as well as the telemovie Carlotta (2013). He has won five Helpmann Awards, a Green Room Award, a Film Critics Circle Award and the 2010 Sidney Myer Individual Performing Arts Award.
Michaela Burger
Michaela first studied at the Adelaide Conservatorium of Music before moving to the UK and going on to obtain a Masters in Musical Theatre at Mountview Academy of Performing Arts in London, performing in many well-known venues around the world.
These include Too2Much in Soho and Cabaret Confidential in Covent Garden. In addition to recently winning the International Cabaret Contest Michaela is the co-writer and star of the successful stage show Exposing Edith about the life and songs of Edith Piaf. The show has appeared to sell out audiences in Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Auckland Cabaret Festival, Melbourne Cabaret Festival, Noosa Long Weekend and Tasmanian Festival of Voices. She has performed with one of Broadway’s most sophisticated songwriters, Jason Robert Brown as well as Australia’s own Tyran Park.
Mitchell Butel
Mitchell holds four Helpmann Awards, three Sydney Theatre Awards and two Green Room Awards for his work as an actor, singer and director.
Mitchell’s stage credits include Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play, The Government Inspector, Angels in America, Strange Interlude, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, The Laramie Project, A View from the Bridge, Dead Heart (Belvoir), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Arms And The Man, Romeo And Juliet, Summer Rain, Harbour, The Republic Of Myopia, Mourning Becomes Electra, Tartuffe, Dead White Males, The Cafe Latte Kid, Six Degrees Of Separation (STC), Pinocchio and Rumpelstiltskin (Windmill Theatre Co/STCSA) and many more. Commercial musical credits include A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Assassins, Avenue Q, Follies and Little Shop Of Horrors.
He holds two AFI nominations for his work in Australian feature films. His film and TV highlights include Dance Academy, Holding The Man, Gettin’ Square, The Bank, Strange Fits Of Passion, Dark City and more.
Elena Carapetis
Elena studied drama at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). Since graduating, Elena’s credits include 4:48 Psychosis, This Uncharted Hour (Brink Productions), Translations (Malthouse Theatre) and Assassins (Flying Penguin and AFTC).
She has also performed in Features of Blown Youth, Uncle Vanya, Central Park West (State Theatre Company of South Australia), Mike Leigh’s Greek Tragedy (Company B Belvoir), urFaust (Sydney Theatre Company) and other work for Sidetrack Performance Group, Parallelo and the NIDA Professional Company. She has had lead guest roles in TV series Blue Heelers, Water Rats, All Saints, Murder Call, Children’s Hospital and Snobs, as well as regular roles in the ABC series Heartbreak High and the award-winning Marking Time written by John Doyle.
Sheridan Harbridge
Sheridan is an actor, playwright, singer and comedienne, graduating from NIDA in 2006. Her musical Songs for the Fallen won Best Musical, and Outstanding actress at the New York Music Theatre Festival in 2015, and has toured Australia and New Zealand. She collaborated with UK cult band The Tiger Lillies on Cockatoo Island for the Biennale of Sydney, and appeared with John Cleese in the Just for Laughs Festival, Sydney Opera House.
Her theatre credits include Muriel’s Wedding the Musical (STC) The Sugar House, The Dog/The Cat (Belvoir), Girl Asleep (Windmill), North by Northwest, The Beast, and The Speechmaker (MTC), Gaybies (Darlinghurst), Kill Climate Deniers, Jump for Jordan (Griffin), 80 Minutes No Interval (Old Fitz), Fiddler on the Roof, Carmen and My Fair Lady (Opera Australia), An Officer & a Gentleman (GFO), Threepenny Opera, Miss Julie, Cabaret, The Bald Soprano, Shafana & Aunt Sarrinah, Frog & Smudge and DreamSong (Arts Centre Melbourne).
Ezra Juanta
Ezra graduated from Adelaide College of Arts in 2006. Since graduating, Ezra has featured in numerous screen and stage productions, the most notable being his portrayal of The Lion in Windmill Theatre Co’s production of The Wizard of Oz.
In 2016 Ezra returned to the musical stage with his loveable performance of the ‘Surprise Character’ in State Theatre Company SA and Windmill Theatre Co’s co-produced musical Rumpelstiltskin.
His other stage credits include Russian Eggflip, The Life of Galileo, Touch Me I’m Sick, King Lear, Under Milkwood, Littlewing and Twinkle Toes, Vin, The Tale of Shaggles and Petrookio, Me N’ Me Mates, Mr Burns, Beep, Grug and the Rainbow, and That Eye The Sky. His film and TV credits include Engine Room, Voodoo and Lue, The Hunter, The Plowman Quandary (God Vs Satan), McLeod’s Daughters, Sam Fox Extreme Adventures, Friendship Love and Loyalty, and Bad Blood.
Alirio Zavarce
A multi-award-winning artistic director and theatre maker, Alirio Zavarce was born in Caracas, Venezuela and migrated to Australia in 1992, graduating from the Flinders University Drama Centre in 2000. He has numerous performance credits with theatre companies across Australia including Sydney Theatre Company, Victorian Opera, Malthouse and State Theatre Company South Australia.
Alirio is the Artistic Director of AJZ Productions, True North Youth Theatre Ensemble and No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability. Alirio wrote and directed Trapped and Sons & Mothers, and wrote and performed in the semi-autobiographical The Book of Loco. He also directed A Kid Like Me as part of the 2015 Come Out Festival. He represented Australia in the Worlds Festival for Children’s Theatre in Canada in 2016, and won both a Ruby Award and an Awgie Award in the same year.
Alirio is currently developing three works: The Tower of Babel, The Book of Errors and I Forgot to Remember To Forget, which premiered at the True Colours Festival in Singapore, and will make its Australian premiere in 2019.
Jonathon Oxlade
Jonathon has designed set and costumes for Queensland Theatre, LaBoite Theatre, isthisyours?, Aphids, Arena Theatre Company, Polyglot, The Real TV Project, Polytoxic, Men of Steel, Lemony S Puppet Theatre, Terrapin Puppet Theatre, Vitalstatistix and Barking Gecko.
He has also worked with Bell Shakespeare, The Border Project, State Theatre of South Australia, Dead Puppet Society, The Last Great Hunt, Sydney Theatre Company, The Escapists, Melbourne Theatre Company, Sandpit, Belvoir St Theatre and Windmill Theatre Co, where he is resident designer. Jonathon has received numerous awards. Most recently in 2016, Jonathon was awarded the Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship and received APDG awards for both Best Production Design and Best Costume Design for Girl Asleep, and received an AACTA award for best Costume for Girl Asleep.
In 2017, he received the Sydney Theatre Award for Best Costume Design for Mr Burns.
Jethro Woodward
Jethro is a composer, musician and sound designer known for his expansive and highly layered film, theatre and dance scores. He is a multi Green Room Award winner and nominee, working with some of Australia’s leading major and independent companies.
These include Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, Belvoir, Arena, Windmill Theatre Co, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Australian Dance Theatre and more. Jethro won Green Room Awards for Moth (Malthouse/Arena), Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd (Malthouse/Arena) and The Bloody Chamber (Malthouse). He was the Musical Director and Sound Designer for six-time Helpmann nominated musical Wizard of Oz and multi-award winning Pinocchio.
Gavin Norris
Gavin’s theatrical and TV lighting designs include: Hot Shoe Shuffle (UK tours), Tap Dogs (London West End & Worldwide tours), Kat and the Kings (UK and Europe), Mum’s the Word (London West End), Gumboots (London West End & Worldwide tours).
Gavin has also done the lighting design for The Importance of Being Earnest (Australian Tour), Mendelssohn’s Dream (ASO – STCSA), Oliver, Follies, Brigadoon, Hedda Gabler, Half a Sixpence, Jack and the Beanstalk, Sweeny Todd, Girls On Tap, Circus days, Circus Nights (Channel 4 TV) Back to Reality (Channel 4TV UK- Associate), The Games (Chan 4TV UK – Associate). His music and event design highlights include: The Darkness (UK arena tours), Diana Ross (Capitol Theatre, Sydney), Human Nature Arena Tour (Australian Tour), Le Grand Cirque –Aerial Dreams (Sydney Opera House – Production Designer), Junglehammer Featuring IoTA, Australia Day Celebrations 2007-2009, (Sydney, Darling Harbour), The Illusionists (Sydney Opera House).
Gavin has worked extensively in the industry for the past 24 years as a Lighting Designer, Lighting Programmer and Production Manager.
Chris Petridis
Chris completed his Technical Production course at the Adelaide Centre of the Arts. Since graduating, he has been working extensively and continuing to develop his experience across theatre, dance, and other live events both in Australia and overseas.
Chris has worked on State Theatre Company South Australia’s Brothers Wreck, In The Club, Terrestrial, Mr Burns, Red Cross Letters, Eh Joefor the Beckett Tryptych, Gorgon, Masquerade,The Kreutzer Sonata, Maggie Stone and Little Bird, Slingsby Theatre Company’s Songs for Those Who’ve Come Across the Seas, Emil and the Detectives, The Mouse, The Bird and the Sausage, Theatre Republic’s Lines, Is This Yours’ Angelique, Brink Productions’ Long Tan, Tiny Bricks’ Deluge plus many more. Chris also worked on If There was a Colour Darker than Black, I’d Wear It, a multimedia performance project for Country Arts SA. Chris has been the lighting designer for Windmill Theatre Co’s Beep, Grug and the Rainbow, Big Bad Wolf and The Story Thieves.
Chris Edser
Chris Edser currently lives and draws in Adelaide, Australia. He has worked in a diverse range of areas – from theatre to sports, classical music to novelty rock bands, wine to beer – so you’ll probably find something to talk to him about.
Chris animates characters, carves things out of wood, was once a member of the video department at Fabrica Creative Research Centre in Italy, and previously designed t-shirts for Screamdance. Chris has completed a Bachelor of Visual Communications (Illustration) at UniSA where he has since taught an animation course and occasional illustration classes. His previous theatre work includes State Theatre Company South Australia and Windmill Theatre Co’s Rumpelstiltskin and Windmill Theatre Co’s Scotland tour of Baba Yaga.
Carol Wellman Kelly
Carol was made in Australia and studied dance at the Victorian College of the Arts. She has extensive experience in performing, teaching and choreographing both nationally and internationally. From 1992 – 1999, she worked as a freelancer in London.
She was the assistant director for Garry Stewart and ADT (2000-2008), rehearsal director for Tasdance, Artistic advisor and Project manager Restless dance Theatre, Movement lecturer Flinders University Drama department, member Board of Directors, Australia Council, Ausdance and SA and Audio Describer for theatre and dance. Carol’s work with Windmill Theatre Co includes The Wizard of Oz, Girl Who Cried Wolf, Pinocchio, Big Bad Wolf and Rumpelstiltskin.
Paul White
Paul White is one of Adelaide’s most sought after musicians, producers, composers, and educators. He has worked with an extensive list of the who’s who of Australian music including Brian Cadd, Stevie Wright, Troy Cassar Daly, The Party boys and many more.
He has also been in his own projects like Goose, Lucifer’s Lounge and the Hammond Eggs. Paul has composed music for short films, commercials, and video games and also produces, engineers and co-writes music with other artists. Paul has toured extensively both nationally and internationally with his music and works regularly in Adelaide not only as a gigging musician but also as a session keyboard player for many recording artists.
Highlights from the show
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY
"Rumpelstiltskin just had an extreme makeover... sensational"
The Australian
"★★★★ Chris Edser has provided animations far beyond anything I have ever seen on stage"
Broadway World
"★★★★ All-singing, all-dancing Rumpelstiltskin rocks Southbank Centre"
Londonist
"An absolute must-see... perfect"
Stage Whispers
"★★★★ Rumpelstiltskin will blow your mind... a mesmerising twist on the classic fairy tale with electrifying songs, sets and costumes"
Culture Whisper London
"Totally mad and utterly unique"
Glam Adelaide
Creating Rumpelstiltskin









Credits
- Director, Co-Writer Rosemary Myers
- Co-Writer Julianne O'Brien
- Performer Paul Capsis
- Performer Michaela Burger
- Performer Mitchell Butel
- Performer Elena Carapetis
- Performer Sheridan Harbridge
- Performer Ezra Juanta
- Performer Alirio Zavarce
- Designer Jonathon Oxlade
- Composer, Musical Director Jethro Woodward
- Lighting Designer Gavin Norris
- Technical Manager Chris Petridis
- Animator Chris Edser
- Movement Consultant Carol Wellman Kelly
- Musician Paul White
Acknowledgements
Rumpelstiltskin is a Windmill Theatre Company and State Theatre Company South Australia production.
The 2018-19 international tour of Rumpelstiltskin was supported by Creative Partnerships Australia, Catalyst – Australia Arts and Culture Fund, and Roger and Helen Salkeld.
The cinema screenings program of Rumpelstiltskin is presented by Australian National Theatre Live.