Backstage

Matt Day

Matt Day joins Regina Botros backstage to talk through the life and times of his character John Reed in Sunday on at Sydney Theatre Company until the 7th December.

An Australian work by Anthony Weigh  - based on the life and times of Sunday and John Reed and the Heide Circle – the renowned group of friends, lovers, and rivals that ruled Australia’s visual art scene in the 30s, 40s and 50s. It is also the story of the fiery love triangle between the irrepressible Sunday 

 

Dean Bryant

Backstage with Dean Bryant and Dear Evan Hansen at Sydney Theatre Company.

Dean Bryant is an award-winning Melbourne-based director and writer who moves between plays, musicals, opera, cabaret and, most recently, screen.

A Little Night Music received the 2024 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Musical and Best Director of a Musical, and Hubris received the award for Best New Australian Work. This follows his reception of the 2022 Sydney Theatre Award and 2023 Green Room Award for his direction of the Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company co-production of Fun Home.

Presented and Produced by Regina Botros

Red Velvet Productions

Kate Britton Liveworks Festival

Kate joins Regina Botros to talk about the Liveworks festival highlights and spotlights.

Kate Britton is the Aritsitc Producer of the Performance Space, a producer, curator and arts manager with more than 10 years experience in festivals, performance, visual art and public programs, with a focus on cross-disciplinary and queer practices. 

 

Di Smith & Katrina Foster

Di Smith & Katrina Foster join Regina Botros to talk about Seventeen on at the Seymour Centre. 

Joyful and profound, Matthew Whittet’s Seventeen tells the story of a group of high school students, experiencing something we all remember well, the last day of school – for ever.

Through a fog of stolen alcohol, six teenagers gather in a playground late at night to share the moment in their lives when the past gives way to an uncertain future, and where secrets are spilled, and friendships are changed. But in a revelatory theatrical twist, all roles are performed by older actors who were seventeen many years ago, bringing the experience of age to the dreams of hopeful youths.

Jack Symonds

Jack Symonds joins Regina Botros to talk about the production Gilgamesh at the Carriageworks.

 

Jack Symonds is a composer, conductor and pianist, and Artistic Director of Sydney Chamber Opera. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music, London under Kenneth Hesketh and at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where he received the University Medal. His stage works represent “a striking and impressive new operatic voice” (Sydney Morning Herald) and he is “one of those performers who seemingly can play anything” (Australian Book Review).

Merlynn Tong with Golden Blood

Merlynn Tong joins Regina to talk about Golden Blood.

Writer and performer in golden blood - first staged at griffin in 2022

Back to stc from 17th sept at wharf 1 Theatre for STC

 

Originally from Singapore Merlynn is known for her screen roles in Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake and ABC’s In Our Blood. Her previous works for the stage, in which she also starred, include her one-woman shows, Ma Ma Ma Mad, the true story of her mother’s suicide, and Blue Bones, a semi—----autobiography of teenage romance.

 

Golden Blood is also inspired by events in Merlynn's own life, and will see her star alongside the brilliant Charles Wu as recently orphaned siblings finding their way into adulthood amongst the steamy, tropical backstreets of Singapore’s criminal underworld.

 

Much of Golden Blood is performed in Singlish - and Merlynn can speak to how she uses language on stage to transport the audience into a different place and time - she touches on that briefly in this video.

 

The show premiered at Griffin Theatre Company in 2022, opens at STC on 17 September, and will also be performed at Melbourne Theatre Company later this year

Lucinda Gleeson

The gorgeous Lucinda Gleeson joins Regina to talk about the show The Arrogance on at KXT Broadway.

Lucinda Gleeson is an actor, director, producer, sometimes lighting designer and most recently the newly appointed Artistic Director of Playback Theatre Sydney.
As a director, Lucinda cut her teeth at Tamarama Rock Surfers (TRS), the theatre company that started The Old Fitzroy Theatre.  Here she directed the trilogy of Benito di Fonzo plays, the first of which was 'The Chronic
Ills of Robert Zimmerman, AKA Bob Dylan, (A Lie) A Theatrical Talking Blues and
Glissendorf.'
This started as a Late Session at The Old Fitz, then the main stage the following season,
before touring with Critical Stages throughout NSW.
The second production was 'Lenny Bruce: 13 Daze Undug In Sydney 1962' at The Bondi
Pavilion produced by TRS and then the third collaboration was, 'A Riff on Keef: The
Human Myth' for Griffin Independent
Other directing credits include:
'Crushed' by Melita Rowston at The New Theatre Independent for Chester Productions.
'Golden Delicious' by Mary Rachel Brown for Bondi Feast
Lucinda is a graduate of the Ensemble Studios.

She is a proud member of MEAA.

Jules Billington

JULES BILLINGTON joins me to talk about The Past is a Wild Party - by Noelle Janaczewska - a SIREN THEATRE Prod. Directed by Kate Gaul.

TRASH AND HIGH ART - CENSORSHIP > GAPS AND SILENCES.  GIRL ON GIRL SEX.

 

 

Dalisa Pigram

Dalisa joins Regina to talk about Cut the Sky, Marrugeku's latest show. She is an award winning practitioner, co-artistic director of Marrugeku and one of the people behind the concept, as well as a co-divisor, performer and choreographer on this work.

Marrugeku is a leading Indigenous intercultural dance theatre company.

And this work CUT THE SKY is set in the north of Western Australia, the story follows climate refugees, traditional owners, miners, and more as they navigate a near-future world.

A stunning production on at the Carriageworks.

 

Don't miss it!

 

Lizzie Schebesta

Lizzie joins Regina Botros to talk about Shakespeare and in particular King Lear a Bell Shakespeare production. She plays Goneril and has been performing and directing the bard's work since graduating from WAAPA.

Lizzie Schebesta has worked extensively in Film, Television and Theatre as an actor, director, choreographer.