At home with arts producer Sarah Rohrsheim
At 55 years of age, arts produce Sarah Rohrsheim is embracing a new stage in life, leaning into her truth as an “intuitive empath”.
Sarah Rohrsheim is casual in jeans, a jumper and sneakers as she greets SALIFE and begins a tour of her luxurious Hindmarsh Island holiday home.
Towering walls of island limestone, oversized designer lighting, sumptuous artworks and beautiful coastal-style homewares abound in this spectacular two-storey home.
But it’s when Sarah begins to explain how she and husband Geoff, an IT entrepreneur, created this oasis on 100 acres of farming land that it becomes evident this property represents much more than a family holiday house.
This calming, beautiful space is inextricably linked to Sarah’s personal journey over the past few years as she has navigated a new phase in life.
The story starts in 2017, when Sarah and Geoff purchased this farming property, which hadn’t really been touched in close to 30 years.
While the couple tried to reconfigure the existing house, it was finally decided to knock it down and build a bespoke home tailor-made for this family of four. Sarah and Geoff’s son Tom, 28, works in renewable energy, and Angus, 25, is an apprentice electrician.
What now stands is a sanctuary that brings warmth, serenity, light and beauty to this slice of the Fleurieu Peninsula. Country landscapes and water views are framed by soaring windows, while outside, the infinity pool, rolling lawns, and private jetty add a resort-like luxury to this unique property.
Black Angus cows graze in a paddock not far from the house, while a fenced off area houses some of Sarah’s favourite farm creatures – her miniature donkeys, Miffy and Murphy, which she says are “calming, spiritual animals”.
Sarah, a former school teacher, says it was while creating the farm and spending time back in nature and with their animals, including beloved dog Willow, that she began to contemplate where she was at in life.
“You get to that point where your children don’t need you so much anymore, which I think shows you’ve done a good job,” she says.
“My boys were off, and at first you go, ‘Oh, my God, that’s heartbreaking, nobody needs me anymore’. But then I was like, okay, what is it that really lights me up?
“I had a wonderful life, I had enjoyed my work, but I felt like I was at the point where I needed more depth that I just couldn’t find.
“My boys were finding their own way and Geoff was doing well, so it was time for me to find what really lifted me up and it all kept coming back to music, artists and top tier talent.”
Sarah had always been involved in the arts as an audience member, a donor, and at the board level. She was a founding patron supporter of the Australian Dance Theatre and is currently on the foundation boards of the Adelaide Fringe and the State Theatre Company South Australia.
Through her Fringe connections, Sarah also created the Sarah Rohrsheim Adelaide Fringe Fellowship Award in 2022, an annual award “recognising and supporting artists that exemplify immense talent and integrity”.
But rather than just donate funds and sit on boards, Sarah says she began to feel she had more to offer, that there was a more meaningful way to get involved and advocate for artists.
Her soul searching and self-discovery led the 55-year-old to fully embrace the way she sees the world, through the lens of what she describes as an “intuitive empath”.
“An intuitive empath is someone who is highly attuned to the emotions, energy, and unspoken dynamics of the people and environments around them,” she says. “This goes beyond ordinary empathy – it involves a deep, often unconscious ability to sense the truth beneath the surface.
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“Intuitive empaths can pick up on what isn’t being said, feel emotional undercurrents, and instinctively understand others’ needs, often before they are articulated.
“I first started to learn about energy and to understand my unique way of experiencing the world about five years ago. I am someone who feels things very deeply and the way I have dealt with that in the past was by feeling anxious, shut down and misunderstood, which was miserable.”
So, as she navigated this very personal and creative reawakening, Sarah began to realise that “board work and KPIs are not my thing”.
“My thing is relationship building,” she says. “I know I’ve got a very high EQ because I’ve done a lot of work in that area on myself. So, I see myself as a bridge between artists and boardrooms, making the artists’ voices heard.”
Sarah built that bridge by establishing her own production company, Wagnan Productions Sarah Rohrsheim, in 2023. Her aim is to identify and support talent within Adelaide’s creative community and ultimately propel that local talent onto the global stage.
It could be a daunting undertaking for someone who has never run her own company, but Sarah says she feels instinctively that she is on the right path, explaining that the company’s owl logo represents “strength, wisdom and power”.
“I often feel misunderstood in a world that tends to value logic and intellect above intuition and emotional depth,” she says. “What I bring isn’t always easy to define – it’s subtle, energetic, and often invisible.
“So, at its core, Wagnan is built on the belief that feeling deeply is a form of intelligence – and that sensitivity, intuition, and care are not soft skills, but essential tools for creating meaningful, soul-rich work.
“Being an intuitive empath means sensing what others miss – picking up on energy, emotion, and truth beneath the surface. It means knowing when a room needs softening, when a creative decision needs realignment, or when an artist needs holding, not pushing.
“This way of being is the heartbeat of Wagnan Productions Sarah Rohrsheim. It’s how I protect the frequency of a project, how I lead without ego, how I build trust, resonance, and emotional depth in every layer of a production.”
However, Sarah does admit to feeling a sense of imposter syndrome as the company got off the ground, but says the right projects gradually began to appear as she learnt to trust the process.
Then “the Mitchell element” came in. Sarah shares a deep friendship and creative outlook with Mitchell Butel, former artistic director of State Theatre Company South Australia, now head of Sydney Theatre Company, a director whom she describes as a genius.
It was Mitchell who was the driving force behind the duo’s first collaboration – State Theatre Company South Australia’s recent production of Kimberly Akimbo. The hit Broadway musical tells the story of a dysfunctional family with a child suffering from a life-limiting syndrome.
The hugely successful Australian production, created in collaboration with Melbourne Theatre Company, starred Marina Prior, Casey Donovan, Christie Whelan Brown, Nathan O’Keefe and a host of bright young stars.
The show was Sarah’s first major work as an associate producer, and she attended rehearsals and spent time in the room with the cast and crew, supporting the development and atmosphere of the production.
“I wasn’t just turning up to opening night with a glass of bubbles, I was invested in this production as associate producer,” she says.
“I don’t want to be someone that just puts money into things. I want to have an energy exchange and be involved in a more hands-on way, not in a controlling sense but more in an energetic and empowering way.
“And this was such a special production. Kimberly Akimbo is a beautiful story about Kimberly who has this syndrome but is still joyous and lives life to the full; it’s a story about hope. These are the kind of stories I want out there.
“Life isn’t perfect and all of us struggle in some way, but there’s hope, and I know it sounds corny, but if you listen to each other and have a depth of understanding, I think the world is a better place.
“I feel empowered through what I’ve done and now I want to keep going and empower others.”
At a time in life when she could be stepping back and just relaxing in many ways, Sarah is instead busier than ever. She is now fielding offers of other projects, across film and theatre, and reveals that there are two feature films in the works, both of which will be shot in Africa next year.
“I can’t say too much at this stage, but it is very exciting,” Sarah says. “A lot of things have happened to me or come into my world that I then research and realise, ‘Oh, that’s why that happened to me’.
“I went to see a medium when I was first contemplating my own business and they said, ‘I wouldn’t normally say this but for you I’m going to say it … ‘dream big’.
“That gave me a licence to just let go. I mean everyone should be taught that really, why put a ceiling on things? So, I thought I love the arts, I love performance and storytelling, and I love global work – I don’t want to keep it little, let’s make it huge and very meaningful.
“In that way I can give back to Adelaide artists and do my bit to promote our incredible local talent.”
Sarah has been an arts lover since she was a young girl growing up in Melbourne. She did dance lessons, ballet, jazz and calisthenics until she was 16 years of age and always loved going to the movies and the theatre.
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Her family, parents John and Margaret and sister Belinda, moved to Adelaide when Sarah was six years old after her father left Elders to become deputy head of a tertiary agricultural school.
Once she finished school, Sarah tried her hand at nursing but decided on teaching instead, going on to work at regional schools across the state before ending up at Wilderness College.
She and Geoff met in their early 20s when he was studying an honours degree in aerospace engineering at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
“I’d known of him through friends,” Sarah says. “He was very good looking and highly intelligent; people talked about him a lot.”
After marrying in 1993, the couple lived in Melbourne for a stint and Sarah became a flight attendant. She worked alongside the couple’s friend Tom Longbottom, a pilot, and when Tom relocated back to Adelaide during Covid, the long-time friends helped Tom and his partner establish Goolwa Air.
While Sarah is ramping up on the work front, Geoff is gradually slowing down. The businessman founded and co-founded IT businesses specialising in web development, cloud computing, healthcare, and AI, and has attained enormous success over the past two decades.
He has sold multiple businesses, including his highly publicised Kloud Solutions sale, for huge amounts of money and, by any measure, life for the family is very comfortable.
“But I remember we had about $500 when we got married,” Sarah says.
“It’s been years of hard work and then all of a sudden, we could finish the house properly [in Adelaide] and money just didn’t become such a stress.
“But that success wasn’t a defining moment of, ‘Oh my god, this is amazing’. It was more that we could just breath a bit easier. And it also means we are now in a position to give back which we both view as extremely important.”
Geoff says he is now enjoying life as an early-stage investor in emerging trends in technology.
“I’m done with creating my own startups, so now I look for other Adelaide-based, young entrepreneurs whom I can back financially and with advice,” he says.
“The parallels with what Sarah is doing are interesting, I think. She has to look for artists, performances, like Kimberly Akimbo, and talent in general that she thinks can grow and she backs them.
“She is very hands on like I was with my startups and is working really hard to have an impact on the arts scene here in Adelaide and beyond. I’m really proud of what she has already achieved.”
Sarah adds: “We try and help people wherever we can. I feel like I have this gift where I can see people’s potential and a lot of them are talented artists.
“So, my company is really important to me in helping these people. All of this is just evolving, so I’m taking it very day by day. I’m trying to learn as much as I can about the industry and what matters to artists.
“My dream would to be get a team around me of more mature, more heart-led people that have more care, more love, more understanding and more empowerment. Because there must be a better way, we need to look after our artists who often end up burnt out.
“Being understood is actually one of the most important things that can happen to a person, which is what I’m trying to do for others, to empower them with listening and understanding.
“So, I’m trying to lift the frequency in the room all the time. It’s just a matter of me learning how to do that better without anyone feeling too seen.”
Whatever frequency she’s on, it does seem to attract people. Sarah tells the story of getting a massage in Sydney one day when Sting, one of her favourite artists, came into the salon.
“We ended up sipping tea and just chatting. He was lovely,” she says.
And when she and Geoff went to see Lenny Kravitz in Las Vegas recently, the charismatic singer climbed through the crowd, and over railings, to hold Sarah’s hand and sing to her.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “He’s another one who has a great energy.”
As she sits on the balcony of her spectacular Hindmarsh Island home, Sarah reflects on this special place and how it ties in with her artistic vision.
“I see this as a sanctuary,” she says. “Even before I was running my own company, when we were first starting to build this, I kept saying to Geoff, ‘I think some big artists are going to come here’.
“I do believe that’s going to happen. We are even thinking about building a sound pod, a soundproof music room, because I would like this to be a place where artists can come. It’s beautiful, they have water and serenity, and they can write their music or create their works.”
Sarah says she’s aware that her language of “energy, healing and frequencies” may come across as far-fetched and fanciful to some, but adds, “I’m not here to convince anyone of anything”.
“What I’m really talking about is care,” she says. “Deep, intentional care for the emotional and creative wellbeing of people. I work in a way that helps gifted artists, leaders and visionaries feel seen, understood and empowered.
“I feel like I live between two worlds really, this world in 3D and a much more energetic space and I try to make things work between these two. People don’t really understand that, they’re not quite ready but I think it’s coming.
“I still don’t know exactly where this is all going but I know it’s important work and I know it’s really exciting. I’m 55 now, so I also know that I’ve just got to get on with things.”
This article first appeared in the September 2025 issue of SALIFE magazine.
