Regina Botros
Red Velvet Productions
Regina has interviewed and recorded hundreds and hundreds of actors, directors, playwrights, poets, artists and everyday people. Some of her favourites include recording the ineffable Barry Humphries reading his poem The Wattle Park Blues, BJORK and Michael Nyman can be heard below, Kip Williams about his directing, directing Kate Mulvany in the drama production of Beyond The Neck by Tom Holloway. Michael Gow, Dame Quentin Bryce, Sir Peter Cosgrove, Wendy Sharpe, Ben Quilty, Brendan Nelson, Eva Cox and Linda Jaivin reading poetry for the World War 1 Centenary special she produced. Playing the 20th Century series covering plays like David Williamson's The Removalist, Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, John Bell, Katherine Brisbane, John McCallum, Simon Stone, Barrie Wentsell,Shane Koyczan, PiO, Jaap, MTC Cronin, Les Murray, Tim Freedman. In fact there are too many to include here.
She has made works for the BBC and BBC World Service podcast In The Studio and assisted with the production of The Arts Hour Sydney live event.
She has worked across different styles of podcasts as an independent producer and moonlights as the presenter/producer of Stages on 2SER FM and the affiliated podcast BACKSTAGE.
Below are a selection of works she has produced since 2005.
ABC Radio National Earshot; Full of hope, botox and impossible dreams, beauty queens are judged on their beauty, sincerity and smarts. They promise world peace in exchange for fame, fortune and adoration. That’s the pact contestants make with the faceless owners of glittering pageants. Let's lift the crown on these queens.
Australia is one of the first countries to see in the new year, and with the Harbour as the backdrop, Sydney shines bright with optimism and hope after some very heavy years.
Sydney Opera House is an iconic music venue. And yet it was also known for less-than-perfect acoustics. Regina Botros joins a team of experts as they re-tune the building.
BBC World Service - In the Studio : Wudjang : Not the Past is Stephen Page's swan song after 30 years at the helm of Australia’s First Nation company, Bangarra Dance Theatre - this is the creative process in the making of his story.
The war that followed the break up of Yugoslavia was one of the most devastating conflicts in Europe in modern times. It pitted ethnic groups, towns and families against each other.
Andrijana Miler and her Bosnian Croatian family lived just north of Sarajevo. In 1991, when she turned 18 Andrijana and two friends — a Serb and Muslim were recruited by the United Nations peacekeepers as interpreters.
Far from a safe job, this put the teenage girls in the line of fire. At the time they didn't understand the consequences.
Nearly thirty years later, Andrijana opens a pandora's box of diaries, photographs and cassette tapes and remembers those traumatic days.
THE HISTORY LISTEN ABC RN
Performing on stage is exciting, there’s the rush of adrenaline and the high of performing, but it’s also a nerve-racking business. Sometimes a little Dutch courage can help take the edge off and settle the nerves. But too much, too often and alcohol can become an occupational hazard.
Ashley was a funny, irreverent and talented man. He played guitar with the band Massapeal, wrote musical scores for big bands and performed with many of Sydney’s leading jazz musos. But when he was diagnosed with brain cancer, the life he knew was changed irreparably.
His partner Rebecca, a singer, journalist and teacher, supported and cared for him during those challenging times. In this fly-on-the-wall documentary they share their very personal struggle with cancer. Their deepest thoughts and feelings about death, love, music and hope will pull at your heartstrings.
This is the most difficult program I have ever made-IN LOVING MEMORY
Produced for ABC Radio National's 360Documentaires 2012
Over 80% of Australians gamble every year. This program explores the relationship between gambling and performing through the stories of musician Tim Freedman, comedian Ciel Stowe and performance poet Tug Dumbly. With some help from Dostoyevsky, Charles Bukowski and Sigmund Freud you'll experience the highs, the lows, the wins, the losses and then there's the gambling. Produced for ABC Radio National's RADIO EYE 2005
Deep in the most inhospitable reaches of the Wollemi National Park north-west of Sydney archaeological survey teams and Aboriginal community members have joined together to map cultural heritage sites in a place described as a world that time forgot. In a secret location, hundreds of spectacular examples of engravings, stencils and rock art have been found.
Produced for ABC Radio National's AWAYE! 2010
A program that explores the language of a father and daughter through their music, poetry and a shared journey back to Czechoslovakia. Jiri Neradilek, a revolutionary poet and trumpeter, is journeying with his daughter Ani back to Czechoslovakia for his mother's 95th birthday. As they travel the streets of his hometown, Jiri reveals stories of his upbringing in communist Prague, they perform music in jazz clubs around town and Jiri shares his poetry with Ani - the poetry that led to the family's eventual defection to Australia in 1983.
Produced for ABC Radio National's Radio Eye 2008
Shane Koyczan is a Canadian poet, spoken word artist, writer and musician. His work is funny, confessional and deeply touching, often in the same poem.
In this program Shane talks about his life and work to producer Regina Botros. We'll also hear Shane performing at a live event recorded at the State Library of NSW and from his albums Remembrance Year, Visiting Hours and Silence is a Song I Know All the Words To. All the music in the program is from Shane’s band The Short Story Long.
Produced for ABC Radio National's EARSHOT
Feature | story
In this edition of The Night Air, we're keeping it all in the Family.
We'll look at the individuals within the family, including Grandma and her memories; we'll listen to the way families communicate, the language and the rules; and we'll hear the stories of some well known family dynasties such as the Fairfaxs and the Carters. So come on in and join the family. Produced for THE NIGHT AIR 2011
Poetry Postcard recorded for BBC The Arts Hour in his home Bunyah.
Short-listed among hundreds of entries for the Third Coast Chicago festival. Written by Tug Dumbly.
Producer Regina Botros
πо’s collection Big Numbers spans over 30 years of his work. He embraces many types of writing from list poems, to dialect poems, work poems, sound poems and concrete or visual poetry including number poems.
Produced for ABC Radio National's POETICA 2012
Memoir
Take a trip down the lanes, streets, crescents and roads that have housed producer Regina Botros since she was a child, and have collectively shaped the adult she's become.
Lex Banning was a free-thinking poet of the Sydney push who was born with cerebral palsy. He died in 1965 at the tender age of 44. Producer Regina Botros’ late aunt Joy Anderson was Lex’s lover. Regina recalled her aunt speaking frequently of the intellectual circles they swam in and their deep discussions of poetry and politics.
Produced for ABC Radio National's EARSHOT 2017
Arts Packages
A new Sydney play tells the story of American comedian Lenny Bruce and his ill-fated trip to Sydney in 1962, when his tour was shut down for being blasphemous and obscene.
As part of Refugees Week, the exhibition New Beginnings features the work of ten refugee and asylum seeker artists. Recorded for Books & Arts Daily 2016
The first ever exhibition of Australian Muslim female artists opens in Sydney. But it's not an exhibition about being Muslim. It's about using various art forms: ceramics, photography, printmaking, sculptures and painting, to understand how Muslim women live, love and learn in Australia. The 18 artists hail from various and diverse cultures including Australia, Morocco, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Malaysia. And you can see their work at the Casula Powerhouse Arts centre as part of its national culture engagement project. Recorded for Books & Arts 2012
Storm Boy is a much loved Australian classic children's novel about a boy and his pelican. It was written in 1963 by Colin Thiele and made into a film in 1976. Both the book and the film reached huge audiences and now this moving tale is on the stage in a collaboration between Perth's Barking Gecko Theatre Company and the Sydney Theatre Company. Recorded fro Books & Arts 2013
Stages
Regina Botros talks with the who's who of the stage!
Theatre, Dance, Comedy and Performing Arts.
Backstage speaks with the leading theatre makers of the times; how they came to the stage, what drives them and what inspires them.
In the 2SER FM studio -
Theatre interview with cast TOBY TRUSLOVE AND HEIDI ARENA, from The Beast by Eddie Perfect.
In the studio at 2SER FM Nathan Lovejoy talks about his direction of the play Resplendence November 2016