Theatre for a New Audience and Rattlestick Theater's co-production of We Are Your Robots, a world premiere musical with a book, music, and lyrics by playwright Ethan Lipton (No Place to Go, Tumacho), is just around the corner, and a creative team has come together.
Running November 7–December 8 at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, the production will officially open November 21.
Featuring Lipton’s Obie-winning band, Ethan Lipton & his Orchestra, the musical will feature Vito Dieterle on saxophone, Eben Levy on guitar, and Ian Riggs on bass. Tony-nominated director Leigh Silverman (Violet, Suffs) will stage the piece, alongside set designer Lee Jellinek, costume designer Alejo Vietti, lighting designer Adam Honoré, projection designer Kate Freer, and sound designer Nevin Steinberg.
We Are Your Robots reunites Lipton and Silverman, who previously worked together on Tumacho, The Outer Space, and No Place to Go. Here, Lipton and his bandmates of 20 years will play robots who’ve come to the theatre to answer the question, “What do humans want from their machines?”
We Are Your Robots will be the first musical to ever be produced at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center.
While Lipton’s earlier band musicals were grounded in his own experiences, this show turns away from personal narrative, creating a piece in which “the audience is, so to speak, the patient, and the character addressing them is more like the doctor.” The show is modeled on the scientific demonstrations often used to prove the capacities of artificial intelligence.
Lipton says in a statement, “In most narratives about technology there’s a villain, but there is no villain in this show. It’s more like couples counseling, which isn’t so concerned with identifying whose flaws are bigger or deciding if you should be in the relationship. You are in this relationship [with your machines], and while it’s tempting to blame it all on them, the show keeps coming back to the question of, ‘What is this dynamic, and what is your role in it?’ Which leads to fun questions like, ‘What do you want for yourself?’ and ‘What do you want for your species?’”
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