ZANDER RAPHAEL SPINS
PUPPETRY INTO GOLD

Gilded Spindle offers Shannon L. Reagan’s retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin tale with a slight #MeToo twist. While the talents and artistry of Reagan, the Wyndwolf Players and Wyndwolf Puppets are present on the stage of the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre, the roughness of the production itself is unable to merge these elements into a unified form. Thus, the show’s wonderful artwork, as well as an excellent performance by Zander Raphael (actor and puppeteer) as the gold-spinning, child-stealing troll, dissolved into the bog of onerous and unnecessary blackouts.

Zander Raphael

The same can be said of the script, except for the brief opening scene between our heroine (Shelby Scuderi) and her father (David Nafissian) the characters never fuse. Raphael succeeds because he’s in a world of his own.

Gilded Spindle
part of the 30 Minutes or Less Festival
The Stephanie Fuery Studio Theater
played January 21 & 25, 2026
for more info, visit 30 Minutes