The Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is located at 1–9 Short Street,

Fremantle, Western Australia Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia located at the mouth of the Swan River (Western Australia), Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australi ...

, in Pioneer Park, opposite the

Fremantle railway station Fremantle railway station is the terminus of Transperth's Fremantle line in Western Australia. History The original Fremantle station opened in Cliff Street on 1 March 1881 as the terminus of the Eastern Railway to Guildford via Perth. As ...

History

The building was constructed as a commercial building in 1921. It is a two-storey

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

building with a

corrugated iron Corrugated galvanised iron (CGI) or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America), zinc (in Cyprus and Nigeria) or ...

roof, constructed in the Federation Free Classical style of architecture. The building was used as the State Shipping Service Office. In 1975 it was vested in the

City of Fremantle The City of Fremantle is a local government areas of Western Australia, local government area in the south of Perth, Western Australia. The City covers an area of , and lies about southwest of the Perth central business district. History ...

and in September 1978 it was officially opened as the Fremantle Art Gallery. In 1988 it was refurbished to specifically accommodate the Spare Parts Puppet Theatre.

Heritage value

The building is listed on the

's Municipal Heritage List.

Current use

Spare Parts Puppet Theatre was founded by Peter Wilson, Cathryn Robinson and Beverley Campbell-Jackson in 1981, as part of an artist-in-residency program initiated by the Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT)now

Curtin University of Technology Curtin University (previously Curtin University of Technology and Western Australian Institute of Technology) is an Australian public research university based in Bentley, Perth, Western Australia. It is named after John Curtin, Prime Minister ...

. The company's first project was a puppet adaptation of

Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe ( ; Baptism, baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the English Renaissance theatre, Eli ...

's '' Doctor Faustus'' for the 1981

Festival of Perth Perth Festival, named Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF) between 2000 and 2017, and sometimes referred to as the Festival of Perth, is Australia's longest-running cultural festival, held annually in Western Australia. The program features ...

. For the first seven years, the company was a touring company, but in 1998 it acquired the Fremantle Art Gallery as a permanent home. From 1997 through to 2001, the company was under the artistic direction of

Noriko Nishimoto was a Japanese–Australian puppeteer. Nishimoto began studying drama in Osaka, but turned to puppetry after a friend took her to see a puppet show. She joined Osaka's La Clarte Puppet Theatre, where she spent 16 years working as a performer, wr ...

. In 2001 Philip Mitchell was appointed the company's new artistic director. In April 2008 the Spare Parts Puppet Theatre hosted the 20th

UNIMA UNIMA (''Union Internationale de la Marionnette'' – International Puppetry Association) is an international non-governmental organization that brings together puppeteers and puppet enthusiasts to develop and promote the art of puppetry. It was ...

(Union Internationals de la Marlonette) World Puppetry Festival and Congress. In a 2022 collaboration with The Doge NFT, Spare Parts Puppet Theatre produced Australia's first NFT collection for a theatre company. They also built a Doge puppet, which now has its own TikTok. The NFT collection was photographed by Louise Coghill.

History

Heritage value

Current use

References

Further reading