Doppelgängster is an international performance collective that thrives on disruption, provocation, and theatrical mischief. We create work that refuses easy answers – interrogating urgent crises of our time: climate breakdown, forced migration, economic instability, and the dizzying swirl of misinformation. Our performances are about difficult questions, hard truths, and operational matters.
Since 2015, we’ve taken our work far and wide – from shipping containers and car parks to disused factories and grand palaces – challenging expectations of what performance can be and where it can happen. We’re equally at home staging intimate encounters and sprawling civic rituals, blending live art, digital technology, and sound into experiences that are urgent, messy, and alive.
Currently active across the UK and Australia, Doppelgangster is a company-in-residence at Sheffield Hallam University, building on foundations laid with support from National Theatre Wales, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, et al. Funded through a patchwork of state, private, and community sources, we keep a watchful eye on budgets – and on each other, making sure no one runs off with costumes and props (too often).
If you’re ready for something unpredictable, unsettling, and impossible to ignore… We are your Doppelgängster.
A CULTURAL RESPONSE TO CLIMATE CHANGE, FORCED MIGRATION AND GLOBALISATION
– IETM’S FRESH PERSPECTIVES IV: ‘ART FOR THE PLANET’S SAKE’
THEATRICAL SABOTEURS
– THE AGE
POSTMODERN
GENIUS
– TIMEOUT
PUTTING THE DADA IN CLIMATE DANGER
– CAPE FAREWELL
WILDLY EXPERIMENTAL AND WILDLY ENTERTAINING
– DAILY REVIEW
ONE OF THE WORLD’S LEADING ENVIRONMENTAL AND POLITICAL ACTIVIST THEATRE COMPANIES
– THE STAR (UK)
DIRECTORS
Dr Tom Payne
Tobias Manderson-Galvin
ASSOCIATES
2025-2026
Kerith Manderson-Galvin (Australia) | Performance Making
Chelsea Hickman (Australia) | Textiles
Pat Fielding (Australia) | Composition
Becky Payne (UK) | Photograph
2022-2024
Kerith Manderson-Galvin (Australia) | Dramaturgy
Pat Fielding (Australia) | Composition
Becky Payne (UK) | Photography
2020-2021
Jules Pascoe (Australia) | Composition
Kerith Manderson-Galvin (Australia) | Dramaturgy
Aquilla Sorensen | Performance
Becky Payne (UK) | Photography
2018-19
Jules Pascoe (Australia) | Composition
Kerith Manderson-Galvin (Australia) | Dramaturgy
Sarah April Lamb (UK) | Choreography
Wilson Liew (Aus) | Photography
Becky Payne (UK) | Photography
2017-18
Jules Pascoe (Australia) | Composition
Kerith Manderson-Galvin (Australia) | Performance Making
Maria Moles + Adam Halliwell | Composition
Wilson Liew | Photography
Becky Payne | Photography
2016-17
Ruby Donohoe (Australia) | Choreography
Jules Pascoe (Australia) | Composition
Antoinette Barboutis (Australia) | Performance/Scenography
Wilson Liew | Photography
2015-16
Rachel Helena Walsh (Ireland/Wales) | Performer
Jimin Lim (Korea) | Director, Performer
Jules Pascoe (Australia) | Composer
Jorge Lizalde (Spain/Wales) | Photographer, Videographer
High Speed Wilson (England) | Creative Producer, Consultant
Antoinette Barboutis (Australia) | Scenographer
WHAT DOPPELGANGSTER DO
ENTERTAINMENT
Despite centuries of tradition, Doppelgangster steadfastly refuses to use bears, trained or otherwise. Particularly not polar bears. Or koala bears, which in truth are not even bears. If there are bears, they’re probably metaphors… maybe we would use Pandas, but only because of the make-up.
EPHEMERA
Doppelgangster’s work will not go up in value when its members die. In fact, a plague of moths will black out the sun, the plants will turn to dust and tickets are limited.
ENIGMAS
Doppelgangster may or may not include a disruptive force, a pilgrim lost at sea or a regular working class, mortgaged, hard-working, working family. That said, Doppelgangster may be nobody at all.