Backstage

William Zappa

The ever charming William Zappa takes Regina from the beginning moments of an actor on stage, to his early life in repertory theatre, to head of the movement department of the VCA, to preparing the Iliad for the stage.

William Zappa's career has crossed continents and spanned four decades of elite performances in film, television, and theatre. After training at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, William worked for The Bristol Old Vic, Marlowe Theatre, Dukes Playhouse and the Theatre Royal - Stratford East.

Moving to Australia in 1976 to take up a post as Head of Movement at the School of Drama, Victorian College of the Arts he returned to acting full time in 1981. Since then he has forged a career as one of our finest actors having played major roles for Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare, Ensemble, Belvoir Street, State Theatre of South Australia, and Griffin. Stand-out roles include Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (SATC) his award winning thirteen characters in Bell Shakespeare's Government Inspector (Green Room Award), Anthony in BSC'c Anthony and Cleopatra, Max in Rock and Roll (STC, MTC), and Edward Damson in Gift of The Gorgon (STC). He also won two awards for his portrayal of Thenardier in Les Miserables, the role which inspired him to write Winter's Discontent, his critically acclaimed one man show, which has just completed a season at The Darlinghurst Theatre.

Film work includes: Men's Group, The Monkeys Mask, The Rage in Placid Lake, Head On, Bootmen and a New Zealand Film Best Actor Award nomination for Crush. Television work includes: City Homicide, All Saints, Grass Roots, GP, and a Penguin Award for Best Actor in Women of the Sun.

Grant Dodwell

Grant Dodwell joins Regina to talk about his extraordinary life, his stages shows, his television fame and fans and Australian Theatre Live.

Grant is a professional actor, writer and producer with over 40 years’ experience in theatre, film and television. Grant is a co-founder of ATLive and is passionate about ensuring younger generations have affordable access to theatre. He is a consistent advocate for actors and theatre creatives, ensuring their work is preserved and celebrated both locally and abroad. Grant has well over three decades of experience in theatre, film and television and was awarded Best Actor at the 2008 IF Awards for his role in the feature film Men’s Group. His major stage roles have been for Belvoir Street Theatre, The Old Tote, Royal Queensland Theatre Company, SA Theatre Company, and he played a lead role in David Williamson’s Third World Blues for the STC. Grant is most well known for his role as Simon Bowen in A Country Practice, for which he won 3 TV Logie Awards; and as Charles Willing in Willing and Abel. Grant co-produced Don Reid’s award-winning stage play Codgers, directed by Wayne Harrison, which became a feature film produced by RealPlayMedia.

Megan Wilding

Megan was recently announced as the winner of the Griffin Award, you may have seen her in Blackie, Blackie, Brown she's ambassador for poetry month and she joins Regina here to talk about all things theatrical.

Megan Wilding, a proud Gamilaroi woman, has established a reputation as a prolifically talented actor, writer and director. Recent winner

Since graduating from WAAPA, Megan has appeared in leading roles in Banging Denmark and Blackie Blackie Brown for the Sydney Theatre Company and The Rover for Belvoir St Theatre.

Her television credits include Sheilas, The Edge of the Bush and The Other Guy.

Winner of the 2017 Balnaves Foundation Indigenous Playwright’s Award, Megan also wrote and directed the acclaimed A Little Piece of Ash which was produced by the Jackrabbit Theatre Company at Kings Cross Theatre (KXT).

Megan is currently directing Exit the King for Redline Productions at The Old Fitzroy.

James Winter

James joins Regina to talk about his life in Papua New Guinea, his life on the stage and the brains behind Brand X.

James Winter graduated as an Actor from the Centre for the Performing Arts (Adelaide) in 1993 before performing for Magpie Theatre Company, Springboard, Queenbitchery, Fleshdollies, Not So Straight and Brand X.

As a Theatre Director, James has worked for the State Opera Company of South Australia, State Theatre Company of South Australia, Restless Dance Company, Urban Myth Theatre of Youth, AIT Arts, Shopfront, Ashfield Youth Theatre, Brand X Theatre and The Studio at the Sydney Opera House.

He has been Artistic Director for Brand X Theatre, D Faces of Youth Arts and Ashfield Youth Theatre, along with being the Associate Director for Urban Myth Theatre of Youth.

His Community Cultural Development (CCD) experience includes theatre projects that engage communities with physical and intellectual disabilities, street dependent, same-sex attracted, gender non-conforming, drug dependent, sex-workers, remote indigenous communities, juvenile justice clients, incarcerated youth, refugee, recent arrival and dual diagnosis.

James has worked in Cairo (Egypt) with African artists in exile to establish self-determining community cultural development projects that include micro-business, cultural events and performance, networking and profile initiatives and a schools arts and cultural policy.

Currently James is a contracted Drama Tutor for Belvoir Theatre’s Youth Express Program working with marginalised young people to develop self-devised theatre project for public performance. He also creates immersive theatre productions for the independent arts sector.

James is co-founder and Director of Brand X; a non-profit service organisation that re-purposes underutilised buildings into creative studios in partnership with the private and public sectors. He currently sits on the board of Darlinghurst Business Partnership and the Nightlife and Creative Sector Advisory Panel for the City of Sydney.

Patrick Dickson

Patrick takes Regina through his life as an actor and into his current show about Victor Hugo.

Patrick is co-artistic director and founding member of O'Punksky's. Essentially an actor he also designs, directs, produces, teaches, builds sets, [this web site] etc etc...... Patrick met Maeliosa Stafford at the Crossroads Theatre in Sydney's Darlinghurst in late 1989 and accepted his offer to join the cast of Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme. There was a tiny budget so Patrick also volunteered to design the show. The production was a small triumph and O'Punksky's theatre was born. In 1990 Patrick played Malcolm Scrawdyke in O'Punksky's next production, Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (chosen for its long title), also directed by Maeliosa. Patrick again took on the task of designer and a creative partnership was galvanized.
Patrick has been acting professionally since 1976, starting his career as AASM at the Theatre Royal in Stratford, East London. After a year he joined the Roundabout Theatre in Education Company in Nottingham and then, after another year at Stratford he emigrated to Australia.
Over the years Patrick has worked with many companies in Australia, most notably Thalia, Bell, Griffin, Ensemble, Studio and most State companies.

Patrick is co-producer/writer of a series of training films in which he performs and sometimes directs. See O'Punksky Pedagogic page on this site.

He has taught acting courses and directed students at UNSW and ACTT.
TV Credits include,: The Timeless Land, Carson's Law, Home and Away, Rake and Seachange.
Film credits include: A Bridge Too Far, The Fluteman, Panacea, Flotsam Jetsam and Rogue Nation.
Patrick has extensive voice credits which include many commercial voice overs, prose and poetry readings for ABC Radio Arts, and book readings which include Treasure Island, The Marx Sisters, The Drowner and A Tale of Two Cities.
Patrick has self-produced two audio books:The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo and Kabaka Lear by David Allen.
Both are available as downloads on iTunes and Audible.com

Tommy Murphy

Tommy joins Regina to talk about the last two decades in his award winning writing career. 

In 2020 Tommy Murphy received the National Theatre Prize from the Australia Council for the Arts. His most recent stage play was Packer & Sons broke box office records at Belvoir.

Another recent work, Mark Colvin’s Kidney is currently in development for a screen adaptation. Murphy’s earlier stage adaptation of Timothy Conigrave’s memoirs, Holding The Man, is regularly produced around the world with recent productions in Florence, Chicago, Nashville and London.

His screenplay for Holding the Man, for which he was Associate Producer, won the Australian Writers’ Guild Award and the Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay. Netflix distributes the film globally.

The stage play Holding the Man started at Griffin, directed by Murphy’s regular collaborator David Berthold, before transferring multiple times across Australia culminating in a West End production. It won multiple awards including the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, the Australian Writers’ Guild Award and the Philip Parsons Award. Tommy was the youngest and only dual winner in consecutive years of the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, having won for Strangers in Between at Griffin in 2005. Strangers in Between was revived in Melbourne, Sydney and on London’s West End in 2018.

Tommy’s adaptation of Lorca’s Blood Wedding formed part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. His play Gwen in Purgatory (Belvoir/La Boite) won the WA Premier’s Award and the Richard Burton Prize. His other plays include Troy’s House (Old Fitz/ATYP) and an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Massacre at Paris (ATYP).

He is a graduate of NIDA’s directing course, a former president of SUDS, a Patrick White Fellow at Sydney Theatre Company and a Sidney Myer Fellowship recipient. Tommy is the creator of an upcoming ABC TV series, having been on the writing teams for Foxtel’s Fighting Season (Goalpost Pictures) and Devil’s Playground (winner of the 2015 Logie for Most Outstanding Miniseries and AACTA Award for Best Miniseries). 

 

Dean Walsh BACKSTAGE

Dean is an award-winning Australian contemporary dance and performance practitioner, teacher and writer.

Dean has made over 45 works to date, solo to group, including 24 works he identifies as queer and/or disability integrated, due to their content, cast members, compositional methodology and the communities they were reflecting.

He is Autistic (higher functioning) and identifies as living with disability through a co-morbidity of ADHD and Complex-PTSD that influences his Autism and life significantly.

https://www.weirdnest.com/home

 

Richard Piper BACKSTAGE

Backstage with Richard Piper.
Richard joins Regina Botros to talk about his life in the theatre.

Richard has spent almost his entire 43-year career on stage.  Trained in London, he was soon performing on the West End in Grease and Elvis, and came to Australia in 1985 with cult cabaret band The Bouncing Czecks.  MTC: The Lady in the Van, Twelfth Night, Born Yesterday, Double Indemnity, Ghosts, Music, Queen Lear, The Gift, Drowsy Chaperone, Rockabye, Entertaining Mr Sloane, The Give and Take, Dumb Show, The Daylight Atheist (Green Room Award), Betrayal, Man the Balloon, Life After George, Measure for Measure, Comedy of Errors. Malthouse:  The Black Rider, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore. STC: The Secret River, Gross und Klein, Great Expectations, Moby Dick.  Bell Shakespeare:  A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The War of the Roses, Henry V, Henry IV.  STCSA: Moby Dick, Marat Sade, Restoration.  Musical Theatre: Come from Away, Oklahoma!, King Kong, Billy Elliot, Rocky Horror. TV:  Wentworth, Underbelly.  Films:  Pirates of the Caribbean. 

Shane Placentino BACKSTAGE

Shane goes Back Stage with Regina Botros to talk about Aida the Opera and his life on the stage.

OPERA AUSTRALIA- AIDA

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR AND CHOREOGRAPHER

Adelaide born Shane Placentino graduated from The Australian Ballet School in 1990 and was accepted into the Australian Ballet in 1991. As a member of the Ballet, Shane danced in the entire classical and contemporary repertoire. He also worked with Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon appearing in Murphy’s Nutcracker and Beyond Twelve. After ten years with The Australian Ballet, Shane left in 2000. He joined Sydney Dance Company in 2002. Sydney Dance Company repertoire: Ellipse, Air and other invisible forces, Salome, Free Radicals, the role of ‘Jack’ in Tivoli, Underland, Random Play, Some Rooms, Grand, Hua Mulan, Berlin and Ever After Ever. Other credits: The Australian Ballet: full classical and contemporary repertoire including Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, The Merry Widow, Jiri Kylian’s Sinfonietta, Nacho Duato’s Jardi Tancat, Stanton Welch’s Red Earth, John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet and Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon. In 2008 Shane has assisted and performed in Meryl Tankard’s Inuk2 and was appointed the stage manager for Rafael Bonachela’s recent work with Sydney Dance Company.

 

Melita Rowston BACKSTAGE

Backstage with Melita Rowston.

The gorgeous and articulate Melita Rowston joins Regina Botros in this episode to dig deep into her life as a theatre maker and the stories behind her work.

Melita is a writer, director, painter and performer. 

Melita's in her happy place writing and directing plays, painting, telling stories about Australia's Shit Tourism, performing poetry, writing about travel (while travelling) and she delights in interviewing interesting people.

​Melita started writing for theatre because she wasn’t seeing the voices of Australian women represented on our stages. She's passionate about giving voice to those left in the shadows, on the sidelines of history. She finds the stories that fall through the cracks are the most compelling. They shed light on the forgotten social narratives of this country and offer us an opportunity to better understand the depth and diversity of our culture, our shared histories and ultimately, ourselves.

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