What a long, strange trip it's been... A Writer's Reflection

After months of hard work, uncountable cups of coffee consumed, lots of jokes about nubs and copious amounts of gum and chapstick, The Seductobot hit the stage from March 2nd, 2011 to March 5th at Perrett's Corner, to a crowd of enthusiastic punters - some of whom got a little more than they bargained for when they read the blurb. Yes folks, we have scandalised, entertained, sang, danced and taught at least one important lesson about consent. And now, it's over and I must admit, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do with myself. Sleep might be an idea. 

I'm very honoured to have met the following people through Seductobot - Saran Goldie-Anderson, Andrew Salisbury, Clare Meyer, Michael Rowlands, Scott Roy, Amy May, Louise Chow and Vynessa Smith. Thank you so much for coming on board. It's been so, so lovely to work with you and I hope we keep in touch and work together in future. 

It has been a delight to work with friends/acquaintances I knew pre-Seductobot - Kirsty McGuire, Hans Landon-Lane, Emma Wollum, Lorenz Wright, Cordelia Black, Jess Howison and Dom Whittaker. Some of you I've gotten to know a lot better, some of you have been putting up with me for years - either way, your support has been so inspiring and I really appreciate having had you around. 

Thanks to Jess Howison and her stage crew - Isaac Prentice, Oliver Ewert and Rueben Waine. You guys were awesome and kept us all in line on the nights. 

A huge thank you must also go to the lovely Elissa Moore of Perrett's Corner, who has been brilliant since we pitched this whole crazy project to her. A shout-out to the staff working during show nights - you guys were very patient with us, so thank you! Perrett's Corner Cafe and Bar is on the corner of Manners and Willis St - if you enjoyed Seductobot, why not show your support and head down for a drink sometime? Friday night is Happy Hour with some lovely drink specials... you know you want to... 

... I don't think we're quite done with The Seductobot just yet. I've heard some scandalous rumours... things like "repeat season" and "web series" so just watch this space, as there might be something in the works. However, we'd probably best take some time to recover. 

But in the meantime, this week has not one but TWO massive Song Sales for the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal! Come along to Medusa at 8pm on Thursday March 10th. Then come along to Cavern Club at 8pm on Friday March 11th. What's a Song Sale, I hear you ask? Check us out on Facebook or Blogspot...

Beth's Adventures Outside The Lab

Yesterday I ran out of coffee and it was hideous and I had to go and get some before lack of caffeine and constant goading caused me to attack the Lobster with the laser. While I was out I had to go and talk to my advisor, it being the start of a new academic year, and as if that wasn't bad enough I got to the university only to find it's overrun with first years. UGH.

I kept my head down and tried to scurry through without making eye contact but was stopped by a nurse and asked to make an approximate volume calculation on a jar filled with an unknown quantity of condoms. I could have done such calculations easily, but in actual fact it had nothing to do with volume at all. I assumed that the people filling it thought they were being clever, but through the logical deconstruction of their methodology I was able to deduce this: The stall was run by student health to promote student health and their services, including the prescription of condoms. The standard prescription is for an entire dispensing pack, which contains 12 packets of 12 condoms each, totalling 144. Therefore, they had filled the jar with 144 condoms as a method of advertising. Duh.

They rang me back later to tell me I had won a "shag bag". I have no idea what such a bag might contain. I hope it isn't a live shag, I'm not sure there is enough room in my lab for a frankenroboshag, though creating a voice mechanism to interact with a beak would be a fun afternoon.

I will pick up this "shag bag" today. Perhaps if I don't want it I can give it to Trevor.

Guest Blog: A Brief History of Robots

The word 'robot' was only coined as recently as 1921 by Czech playwright Karel Čapek, from the Old Church Slavonic for slave labour. The word then achieved widespread currency in the science fiction community, to the extent that when technology advanced far enough to actually create robots the word was transplanted from fiction to reality. But the idea of creating artificial life in our own image is, of course, much, much older.


In 18th century Austria, the Mechanical Turk (a chess-playing automaton) was accused of seducing and subsequently murdering a young noblewoman. The fact that the Turk's inner workings actually concealed a rather cramped Venetian dwarf was not widely known at the time.


Around the 15th century the Lords of the Golden horn, the sultans of the Ottoman Empire, were pleased to entertain a certain Arab who reputedly produced automata in the shapes of birds, fountains and beautiful women, which would variously fly, burble and sing. Although records of the Arab's works remain, none of the devices themselves have survived.


The Ancient Greeks had their legends of Pygmalion, whose love for his sculpture brought her to life.


And, of course, someone-or-other supposedly made someone or something in His or Her image, out of clay, spit, blood, wax, ribs and various other organs -- whatever came to hand, really -- a long, long time ago.


It's funny that for most of us robots suggest the futuristic, when the idea is one of the oldest we have.


***

Blog by the ever witty Hans. 

Nearly a week til opening night - don't forget to book!

Just a reminder that we're opening on the 2nd of March. Email us at theseductobot@gmail.com to book in a ticket - just let us know the date you'd like to go, your name and contact number and the number of tickets you'd like to book.

In the meantime... HERE IS SOME SCIENCE!

From the journals of... CHELSEA

That guy with the bike shorts who looks like Richard Simmons came in to the cafe again today with a bunch of flowers for my workmate (and if you're reading this, Bike-pants, suck it up. You're creepy, okay?). There were roses and chocolates and a little teddy bear and everything. Honestly I think maybe half the customers who come in are just there to make eyes at her, it's ridiculous. And I get the "Espresso, and try not to take all day about it!" people. Seriously, FML.

Lobster Mail: shall we dance?

this

 is

 how

 we

rehearse!

Meet The Cast: Saran

Hilarious day of rehearsals today - somehow we ended up tying Beth and Trevor together at the hip, while Stefan and the Panda learned dance moves outside. More on that later, for now, how about we keep meeting the cast?

Saran has been involved in ridiculous amounts of shows for the last 15 years (over 30!), so she’s well and truly experienced. In 2006, she worked with Barbarian Productions on Jo Randerson's Skazzle Dazzle and the Footsteps productions "Barry's Bush Trails" and "Ye Olde Horrore Tour" for the 2006 Fringe Festival, which won "Most Innovative" at the Fringe awards that year. In 2010, she performed in “Resolve” with Odd Socks Productions - a Deaf and hearing collaboration about communcation without language and sound you can feel and see as well as hear.

Saran is playing the role of Beth, a socially inept scientist who invents and builds all sorts of fantastic creations, including Admiral Panda, The Lobsterator and, of course, The Seductobot herself. Watch out as Beth uses SCIENCE! in an attempt to solve her problems... unfortunately, sometimes matters of the heart need a less scientific approach.

Daizy Design meets Team Seductobot

Last night, Kirsty got topless for a near stranger.

It's not as bad as it sounds! The extremely talented Christy of Daizy Design very generously agreed to help us bring Sylvie the Seductobot to life for our publicity campaign - and boy, did she do a good job! Check out some of the photos of the aftermath of nearly 5 hours spent painting Kirsty's torso with all sorts of magical circuitry.

So below is our shiny new publicity poster for the show. Don't forget to check out Daizy Design for other incredible works of art!

3 Weeks Til Showtime!

Hi folks,

We've got a Facebook event up now - which means that it's really happening! (As we all know, nothing is truly official until it's on Facebook.) Check it out! Also, Patricia from The Music and Artists' Social Club has blogged about us as a Fringe Show to see, which is fantastic! She's actually going to be videoing the performance for us, so that's pretty neat.

In the meantime, here are a couple of shots from a few weeks back at the cast pot luck. It turns out that pretty much everyone in the cast is a really good cook. Who knew?

A rather classy looking table of rather classy looking food. I quite liked the asparagus. 

Emma and Lorenz in an obviously intense conversation. A rather classy-looking Saran, clearly displaying her best side to the camera. And Kirsty poking out from around the back, stirring the delicious soup.

Cordelia is amused. Potentially by Emma's epic posing. 

Saran, slaving over a hot stove with such a gleeful expression that you can't really feel too sorrow for her. 

Pandrew is a dishes ninja! And Saran is sneakily in shot. 

Rose, Hans and Kirsty - I think it's a toast. I'm not sure. All I can really tell from this shot is that Hans looks rather taken aback, Kirsty looks somewhat resigned to her fate and I apparently didn't get the memo that this photo was supposed to be funny. 

Catch up with y'all later - with more sneak-peeks into the show, cast, crew and general antics!

Rose

Meet The Cast: Kirsty

Kirsty is a graduate of the Victoria University Theatre Program and a founding member of Quite Sensible theatre. As well as being a seasoned performer, she's also a playwright, having written, directed and performed in Primary at BATS in 2009 as part of the Two Day Play competition and 'Y' in 2010 in association with Quite Sensible, performed in a mystery location in the fine city of Wellington. Kirsty is currently taking part in the Iowa Prose Creative Writing Course at Vic, when she's not busy seducing - I mean, Seductobot-ing.

Kirsty is playing Sylvie - the Seductobot herself! Watch out for Sylvie's sweet saucy sexy musical numbers and her matter-of-fact approach to all those things we humans try not to say...

Lobster Mail: It GROWS!

Behold:

THE CLAW

Meet The Cast: Lorenz

Lorenz is a veteran of the Victoria University French Club play, having played a variety of roles from a priest (wearing fishnets underneath his costume) to the iconic cartoon character Tintin (with vaguely homo-erotic undertones). He took part in numerous amateur musical theatre productions in his youth (notably the title role in Oliver!) and is a devoted music lover, to the point where he actually wrote his honours thesis for his French degree about 'les chansons francaises' (French songs, for those of you not au courant with la belle langue). He's currently completing his law degree at Victoria - when not rehearsing for this show!

Lorenz plays the role of Trevor, a philosophy student who, though very sweet, is a little clueless when it comes to his feelings for his best friend Beth and more than a little out of touch with reality when it comes to 'smoking hot coffee shop girl' Darlene. (He's also the closest thing this show has to a Disney princess... thus, the photo.)

Meet The Cast: Emma

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the lovely Emma:

I would say in a nutshell, but that's not quite accurate. 

Emma is the closest thing our cast has to a wandering minstrel - originally from Vermont in the United States, she's been running around the globe with her accordion for some time now and has somehow found herself more or less settled in New Zealand, at least for the time being. She's been featured in the Acoustic Routes Young Performers Showcase for her exceptional accordion-playing, singer/songwriter-ing talents and always manages to draw a crowd. As you may or may not be aware: when properly wielded, the accordion is a weapon of mass seduction. 

Emma will be playing the deliciously two-faced Darlene - a misleadingly sweet-looking waitress who looking for a man with a really big wallet (and can overlook other things being a decent amount smaller - at least for awhile). Watch out for some sweet, sweet jazz and all sorts of sweet, sweet lovin'...

Lobster Mail: Weekend rehearsals

Hello shrimplings,
Here is a brief photographic account of what we got up to over Wellington Anniversary weekend. At some stage I shall get victims among the cast to pose for some sneak previews of our ludicrous choreography.

Our actors get acquainted

Coffee is a vital part of the rehearsal process

The panda in ninja mode

The panda claims a trophy - hey! - that's my arm! Give that back!

Meet The Cast: Hans

Ladies, gentlemen and robots,

It's beginning to look at lot like Fringe time. Waking up and realising that we're only really 6 weeks away from opening is a bit of a shock to the system but taking Sunday's rehearsal into consideration, I think we're going to be fine. This weekend, I take the cast hostage! We rehearse all weekend! Before we unfortunately must release the lovely Emma into the wild (aka Vermont) and she is only returned immediately before we open... no pressure.

In the meantime, meet a cast member:

Hans has performed in numerous musical theatre productions, both in Wellington and abroad. Having grown up as an expat all over Asia, he has a wealth of cultural and musical experience to bring to the show. Hans has taken the role of Master of Ceremonies in the 2009 Wellington Body Art Awards and the 2010 Capital Fetish Ball, as well as performing in Funhouse Cabaret, twice-weekly dinner theatre devised-cabaret shows at the Garden Club, in 2009. A multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and cabaret devotee, Hans finished 2010 as part of the cast of a charity production of Cabaret, the proceeds of which were entirely donated to Life Flight Trust.

In The Seductobot, Hans is playing the role of Stefan, a smooth-talking, egotistical lawyer with no concept of morality - which isn't anywhere near what he's like in real life. Which is why it's called acting. Look out for some kick-ass musical numbers from this guy!