One sunny day in a quaint provincial square, Berenger and Jean have arranged to meet at a café before the town is thrown into chaos when one by one, its residents begin transforming into rhinoceroses. Ionesco’s absurdist cult classic locks horns with political extremism, conformity and responsibility at the end of the world, brought stampeding into the twenty-first century.

Directed by Cassandra Fumi
Writer: Zinnie Harris after Eugene Ionesco
Performed by Belinda Anderson-Hunt, James Cerché, John Marc Desengano, Joey Lai, Zachary Pidd, Cait Spiker, Jessica Stanley and Annabelle Tudor, featuring Alexandra Aldrich as the swing.
Set Design by Jacob Battista & Dann Barber
Costume Design by Dann Barber
Lighting Designer: Rachel Burke
Composer & Sound Designer: Rachel Lewindon
Stage manager & assistant director: Georgina Bright
Assistant Stage Manager: Bridget Sweeney
Lighting Design Associate: Spencer Herd
Costume Supervisor & Maker: Christie Milton
Costume Intern & Maker: Ashley Reid
Costume Maker: Janne Barber
Set Intern & Maker: Jonel Factor
Art Finisher: Nell Ferguson
Cloud Cloth Makers: Ella Butler & Tilly Robba
Intimacy Director: Annabelle Tudor
Promotional Photography by Sarah Clarke
Production Photography by Darren Gill
Produced by Spinning Plates Co.

October 31st - November 17th, 2025, Fortyfivedownstairs

“★★★★ The faithfulness of Cassandra Fumi’s production to the mysteries and traditions of absurdist theatre will get up the nose of anyone who wants to ignore their capacity to turn into rhinoceros - and is stronger for it” The Age

★★★★…Fumi’s direction brings out both the humour and horror of conformity.
Limelight

“Fumi’s tight control of the action – a wild mash of pantomime, burlesque, and meticulous ensemble work – is pitch-perfect”
Australian Book Review

“★★★★…Spinning Plates Co has done it again; this cautionary tale is entertaining and edifying as well as being aesthetically inventive and directorially adroit.
Arts Hub

A woman summons up her childhood with an intensity so visceral it seems to be playing out in front of us. But as her memories draw closer to the present, the space between the personal and the speculative grows ever more blurry. Where do you end, and everything else begins?

An elegy for the future we’re yet to inherit, World Problems is both comical and terrifying, gripping and cathartic. A solo time capsule catapulting across the ages, it seamlessly merges the most private and intimate reflections with a world-spanning perspective.

Writer: Emma Mary Hall
Cast: Carly Sheppard
Director: Cassandra Fumi
Set & Costume Design: Dann Barber
Sound Composition: Rachel Lewindon
Lighting Design: Harrie Hogan
Movement Consultant: Amelia Jean O’Leary
Additional Dramaturgy: Kamarra Bell-Wykes
Photos by Tiffany Garvie

3 MAY — 22 MAY 2024- Southbank Theatre, The Lawler, Melbourne Theatre Company

World Problems embarks on a regional tour 24 May–7 June

More info

Ivan is a struggling actor who hasn’t yet achieved the recognition he feels he deserves. But all that is about to change when, one afternoon at the zoo with his friend Zack, he is swallowed whole by a crocodile.

Based on Dostoevsky’s short story, Tom Basden’s THE CROCODILE is a ferociously funny, eye-poppingly theatrical play about art, animals, and what happens when you try to take on the system from within… a crocodile.

Director: Cassandra Fumi
Writer: Tom Basden
Cast: James Cerche, Joey Lai, Cait Spiker, and Jessica Stanley
Set & Costume Design: Dann Barber
Costume Supervisor & Maker: Alexandra Aldrich
Design Associate: Savanna Wegman
Sound Design: Gabriel Bethune
Lighting Design: Spencer Herd
Stage Manager: Luci Watts
Assistant Stage Manager: Finn McLeish

15 – 26 February 2023 - Fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne

★★★★½ “Director Cassandra Fumi has drawn together an inspired harlequinade: every element of stagecraft merges with guillotine-sharp synergy… The actors are hilarious, and extremely skilled.” Cameron Woodhead, The Age

“★★★★½…under the direction of Cassandra Fumi, is uproariously funny and it starts pretty much from the first moment. everything about Spinning Plates Co’s The Crocodile works”- Anna Hayes, Theatre Matters

“★★★★½…Cassandra Fumi’s talented direction, informed by an intimate knowledge of interesting avant garde stages, both in Melbourne and internationally, brings all the elements together and the overall impression is of a stylish, enjoyable, accessible and contemporary take on our moment, which resonates into the past. - Vanessa Francesca, Arts Hub

“This is such a clever, thoughtful piece of theatre…It should be remounted and toured interstate” - Richard Watts, 3RRR Smart Arts

“In this impeccable show, every element – text, cast, direction, costumes, set design, sound and lighting – all cohere into a brilliant piece of theatre. It is fun, it is funny, it is sharp and dazzling, and we are often dumbfounded at just how good it is – several cuts above so much else that is on offer.” Michael Brindley, Stage Whispers

Winner- Green Room Award for Direction (independent)
Director - Cassandra Fumi -

Winner- Green Room Award for Design (independent)
Set/Costume Design - Dann Barber -

Winner- Green Room Award for Performance (independent)
Performer - Cait Spiker -

FAR AWAY
by CARYL CHURCHILL
Produced by Patalog Theatre

In a house far away, a child wakes to the sound of screaming. Who will tell her what is really going on? And where will the discoveries she makes that night take her in the years to come?

A playwright of genuine audacity and assurance; Caryl Churchill is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost innovators of theatrical language. Far Away is her masterwork, presenting audiences with a profound and unexpected vision of a world sliding into chaos. Arguably her most famous play, Far Away delivers a dazzling satire on the crude, but increasingly popular idea that there is a binary divide between virtue and iniquity; between good and evil; and most pertinent to the times we find ourselves in, between an 'us' and a 'them'.

Cast: Alison Whyte, Lucy Ansell and Darcy Kent, with Darcy Sterling-Cox and Noray Hosny
Director: Cassandra Fumi
Set & Costume Designer: Dann Barber
Lighting Designer: Rachel Burke
Composer and Sound Designer: Rachel Lewindon
Assistant Director: Kuda Mapeza
Associate Designer: Savanna Wegman
Technical Lighting Assistant: Spencer Herd
Stage Manager: Georgie Bright
Assistant Stage Manager: Finn McLeish
Producers: Ben Walter and Thalia Dudek
Pics: Cameron Grant

✭✭✭✭ “ Cassandra Fumi directs with commendable attention to detail while leaving ample room for the text and performances to fully register.” Ben Brooker - Australian Book Review

✭✭✭✭ “Cassandra Fumi’s is well-attuned to Churchill’s script and seeks out creative ways to amplify its themes in ways that make the most of Barber’s set. Fumi strikes a perfect balance between technical elements and actor performances across the board”
Guy Webster- Limelight

✭✭✭✭ “Cassandra Fumi’s unsettling, atmospheric production is moody and embraces the ambiguities of the text and absurd mundanities.” Darcy Turnbull - Theatre Matters

13th - 30th of July, 2023, fortyfivedownstairs

The Mermaid is a contemporary performance work in response to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale The Little Mermaid, Disney's film, and Edvard Eriksen's statue in Copenhagen.

This coming of age story has seen the nine teenagers come of age through the devising and rehearsal process. This production draws on their energy, creativity, and worldview. It is poetic, chaotic, mythical, and contemporary all at once. It learns from the past but moves towards new mythology.

Ask the ensemble about the work and they’ll take you on a journey through H20 Tik Toks, “Mermaid Found!” conspiracy videos, and long-winded theories about Sofia Coppola’s unmade film. Delve a little deeper and they’ll tell you its queer feminist tragedy about expression, recognition self-actualisation, and celebrating individuality. They put it directly: “Don’t sacrifice yourself for shit people or material things".

Director: Cassandra Fumi
Artistic Associate: Tennessee Mynott-Rudland
Devised with and performed by: Allegra Di Lallo, An Dang, Theo Boltman, Casper Plum, Flora Feldman, Marshall Morgan, Asha Randall-Sheppard, Ella Simons and Frankie Willcox.
Developed with: Emily Goddard, Margaret Mills, Izzy Roberts-Orr (text), Mila Jenkins, Harriet Lawson-Acar.
Set and Costume Designer: Dann Barber
Lighting Designer: Rachel Burke
Composer: Christopher Bolton
Sound Design: Bee Montagner with Ivy Luo
Assistant Director: Tove Due
Set and Costume Secondment: Savanna Wegman
Director’s Secondment: Celina Mack
Dramaturgy: Vidya Rajan
Images Casper Plum

PREMIERE SEASON
14- 25 JULY, 2021, LA MAMA THEATRE, MELBOURNE
PART OF THE 2021 VCE PLAYLIST

“Indeed, director Cassandra Fumi uses silence rather brilliantly to insist upon unspoken truths.” The Age- Cameron Woodhead

“the direction of Cassandra Fumi meld things into a cohesive whole, slipping smoothly from narrative, to monologue, to interludes of movement that create resonant images”
Michael Brindley

WINNER of TWO GREEN ROOM AWARDS - 2021
+ Dann Barber for Design (independent)
+ Rachel Burke for Lighting Design (independent)

WINNER: Best Emerging Performance Ensemble
Melbourne Fringe 2018

directed by Cassandra Fumi
dramaturg: Alice Fitzgearld
performed by: Simone French, Alex Roe & Adam Ibrahim
drummer/performer: Cassandra Kumaschow
designer: Dann Barber
stage manager/show manager: Tennessee Mynott-Rudland
producer: Natalie Smith

DOG SHOW transforms the theatre into a dog show arena. It is a hybrid piece, a mongrel bred from the irreverence of clowning, the glamour of drag and the absurdity of physical comedy. It’s an inter-species pageant where actors transform between dogs and their owners.

Melbourne Fringe Hub - Warehouse Sep 14 - Sep 22, 2018 (SOLD OUT SEASON)
Falls Festival The Village - Marion Bay, Tasmania Dec 29 - Jan 1, 2019
La Mama Explorations 1 - 3 December, 2017. (First Development)

“Look beneath the surface and you'll find that Dog Show has plenty of bite in its hilariously camp bark.” Myron My
Full review: https://bit.ly/2y2cQEW

★★★★ “It offered a fresh perspective, an interesting style of storytelling and actors extremely talented in physically demanding performance.”
Full review: https://bit.ly/2zIgeqH

I can't imagine seeing a funnier, more creative and more original show than I saw last night in Dog Show.
Full Review: https://bit.ly/2zGN0si

FOLLOW US HERE:
https://www.facebook.com/dogshowtheatre/

TRAILER by HAMISH KELLY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7SBbze5Mf0

Pics Sarah Walker

Nadja is a devised adaptation of André Breton’s 1928 surrealist novel. His autobiographical story depicts a series of eight encounters he has with a woman, he names, ‘Nadja’.

Our adaptation dismantles the mobile mantle of a woman's life, a life that was called Nadja but may have been mine, (or maybe yours.) A trifocal troupe of artists animate consenting objects in a contract to expand and condense time.

An ice installation melts throughout, fish swim in circles and windows turn red. Expect to witness the annihilation of women, cis males and acts of entitlement.

We want to take our audience on a series of marvellous steps to free ourselves from societal norms and expectations. 

Directed & Adapted by Cassandra Fumi. 
Flavia Bertram as Nadie.
Ayesha Tansey as Nadja.
Edmund Digby-Jones as André Breton.
Pics by Alex Brenner. 

Thursday 3 - 8 November,
The Cockpit, Marylebone,
Part of the 2016 Voila! Festival.
LONDON

17- 19, November,  
HTH Arts Centre, 
Part of the 2016 Imp Festival.
LONDON

Supported by HTH Arts Centre & The Cockpit Theatre

WINNER: Best Theatre Weekly Award - Week 3
Adelaide Fringe 2017

The Places You'll Go is the spiritual successor of Dr Seuss classic.  An ensemble uses heightened language, physical humour and loud caricatures to tell this story of a journey. It's an ode to millennial woe and interrogates society’s struggle with success, self-worth and addiction to stuff.

Written by Hila Ben Gera
Directed by Cassandra Fumi
CAST: Tom Halls, Grace Lowry, Sean Rees,
Alex Roe & Hila Ben Gera.
Music by Shai Fishman composer of The Voca People.
Prop Design by Natasha Lacey
Production Images by Delta Stinton

MARCH 1–4th, 8-11th, 14–17th,  9pm. MARCH 7th 7:30PM
128 KING ST, The Garage International at Adelaide Town Hall

★★★★ "The beauty is in the grey." The Adeladie Advertiser
Full Review: http://bit.ly/2nqOTAW

★★★★★ “Positively quirky and as captivating as it was unpredictable…without a doubt brimming with talent” - The Adelaidian. 
Full Review: http://bit.ly/2mn9lEJ

★★★★ “This show is not like others! one to try out for adventurous theatre folk” 
Glam Adelaide. Full Review: http://bit.ly/2n7TSXj

★★★★1/2 "Fumi’s direction is focused on flowing, highly disciplined choreographed physicality powering the work"
The Barefoot Review. Full Review: http://bit.ly/2nHvxYP