Nathan Stafford’s first brush with royalty came on a Christmas Pageant float. His latest takes him to Imperial Russia, Paris and one of Australia’s biggest musical theatre stages.
Most Adelaide kids would say they’d peaked at being chosen as a prince on the Christmas Pageant’s royal float. For Nathan Stafford, it was just the start.
The same year, he made his professional stage debut in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Adelaide Festival Theatre. He was 10.
Now, at 23, he’s back on that same stage – newly refurbished – in the Australian production of hit Broadway musical Anastasia.
Where it started
The performing bug hit Nathan early. He first caught it watching his cousins in Adelaide in hip hop crew One50 Dance.
“That’s what started my passion to start performing,” he says. “I watched them and thought, that’s what I want to do.”
He watched Michael Jackson clips, then old movie musicals – Gene Kelly was the performer who inspired him most.
“That old-school Broadway style, that’s more the style I grew to like even more,” he says. “I’ve always sort of known I wanted to be an entertainer of some sort. Musical theatre encapsulates all the things I wanted to do – singing, dancing, acting, storytelling. It has all the things that tell a story the best.”
Next came formal training at TIDC Dance Studio and Adelaide Youth Theatre, national dance awards, and a run of lead roles in amateur stage productions – Peter Pan, Danny in Grease, and Willy Wonka.
Going pro at 10
Then the professional work started, and it started young. First there was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, then at 12 Nathan played Friedrich in The Sound of Music. He also performed as young Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake with the Australian Ballet.
“It felt so massive, looking out into the audience,” Nathan says of performing on the Festival Theatre stage. “It’s still big now – even as an adult it still feels massive. But maybe that’s just because I remember it as a kid.”
The theatre he’s coming back to has had a glow-up. In February 2026 the Adelaide Festival Centre reopened after a state-government-backed $55 million upgrade – new seating, staging, lighting and foyers across all three theatres – plus a new European-style restaurant, Angry Penguin. Nathan’s yet to see it, and he’s keen – especially to get back into the green room.
“I love the Adelaide Festival green room. It has a nice little café in there. Looking forward to being back there again.”
The straight-A theatre kid
Somehow, school didn’t take a back seat to any of this. Nathan finished Year 12 at Trinity College with an ATAR of 99.9.
“I did not expect that at all,” he says. “I was the first performing arts student to win Dux of my college. It’s opened up my school now to the arts, and the importance and the impact the arts can have.”
The skills stuck, too – and not the ones you’d expect from a report card.
“The skills I learned in Year 12 – time management, creative thinking – I use now in my performing,” he says. “I try to use my brain in a creative way that most people wouldn’t, and that helps with things like auditions, coming in with material in a way that’s different to how the majority of people would present it.”
Feast, famine and footlights
Nathan’s “grown-up” career started while he was still studying at the Victorian College of the Arts, on a Melbourne Chancellor’s Scholarship. He landed an ensemble fill-in for Opera Australia’s Sunset Boulevard – a quick job that wasn’t meant to last.
“I was there to fill in, then I said goodbye to the company and went back to uni,” he says. “I was there about a week, and then I got a call to come back and join the company for a month.”
After graduating came Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, where he understudied Lumiere and Cogsworth.
“I never would have thought I’d be playing those sorts of characters. When you look in the mirror, you see yourself as this completely unrecognisable character – that helps you get into it.”
He’s philosophical about an industry that runs hot and cold. He quotes advice he once heard from Broadway performer Ryan McCartan: there’s the feast and there’s the famine.
“While you’re feasting, you’ve got to enjoy that feast, because it’ll help you feed the famine when you have those patches. So I’m just enjoying the time I’m having at the moment. It’s been great.”
Finding Anastasia
Which brings him to Anastasia. Nathan’s in the ensemble, and understudies two roles – including Dmitry, the con man at the centre of the story.
“That’s been really fun to explore, that leading man and what it requires to tell the main narrative,” he says.
The show itself is a lavish retelling of the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov legend, sweeping from the last days of Imperial Russia to 1920s Paris, with songs lifted from the 1997 animated film. It’s played to audiences around the world in a stack of languages, and Nathan says the reason it travels so well is simple.
“It’s the story of identity and self-discovery – finding who you are and where you fit in the world. That’s pretty universal.
“But Adelaide will also just love the spectacle. The music, the lighting, the sound design, the costumes, the hair – they’ll appreciate all of that.”
Then there are the little Anastasias in the current cast – child performers who send him straight back to himself at that age.
“It reminds me of my time when I did that when I was little. There are people who did Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and now I’m working with them as an adult, which is surreal. That could happen to these little Anastasias if they keep going. It’s a full-circle moment.”
Coming home to the Festival Theatre
He’s also looking forward to performing for a hometown crowd – including his family, who have always believed in him.
“They’ve already come and seen me do it in Melbourne. That’s what big supporters they are – they came over and wanted to watch it immediately.
“I’m sure they’ll come multiple times while I’m in Adelaide. It’s special every time I get to perform for them.”
He says Anastasia makes a great night out for all ages – and is perfect if you want a date night to remember.
“It’s very intimate, going to a theatre and watching a show together. You get an emotional connection to a story that’s live in front of you, but you’re also sharing it with whoever you’re with.
“It can be a very romantic evening.”
Anastasia the Hit Broadway Musical arrives at the Festival Theatre next month. Book tickets here.
