Spare Parts Puppet Theatre

About

The Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is located at 1–9 Short Street, Fremantle, Western Australia, in Pioneer Park, opposite the Fremantle railway station.

The building was constructed as a commercial building in 1921. It is a two-storey limestone building with a corrugated iron 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 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.

The building is listed on the City of Fremantle 's Municipal Heritage List.

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. The company's first project was a puppet adaptation of Christopher Marlowe 's Doctor Faustus for the 1981 Festival of Perth. For the first seven years, the company was a touring company, but in 1988 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. In 2001 Philip Mitchell was appointed the company's new artistic director.

In April 2008 the Spare Parts Puppet Theatre hosted the 20th UNIMA (Union Internationals de la Marlonette) World Puppetry Festival and Congress.

In a 2022 collaboration with The Doge NFT, [ full citation needed ] Spare Parts Puppet Theatre produced Australia's first NFT collection [ full citation needed ] for a theatre company. [ full citation needed ] They also built a Doge puppet, which now has its own TikTok. [ full citation needed ]

The NFT collection was photographed by Louise Coghill. [ full citation needed ] [ full citation needed ]

In October 2025 the Spare Parts Puppet Theatre announced a decision to move from their original venue in Fremantle, committing to a redevelopment of the Ellie Eaton Theatre located in the Claremont Showgrounds as their new home. This move, supported by the Western Australian Government, Lotterywest and the Royal Agricultural Society of WA, followed the decision by the State Government to condemn the original theatre over safety and structural concerns for the aging venue.