We Are Your Robots

Name: We Are Your Robots
Start: 2024-12-08T19:30:00-05:00
Location: Polonsky Shakespeare Center

December 8, 2024

THIS EVENT HAS EXPIRED

Price

Standard: $97 to $132

Includes: $7 convenience fee

Location

Polonsky Shakespeare Center

Click here for map & Directions

BEST THEATER OF 2024
“Ethan Lipton’s outstanding new concert play…sly, smart as heck, and somehow both extremely tender and laugh-out-loud funny…charming tunes and clever lyrics…a rare and humane gem.”

― Sara Holdren, New York Magazine

“We Are Your Robots, a co-production with Rattlestick Theater, is here to find out whether androids dream of electric guitars. Ethan Lipton and his three bandmates jam and swing to a whole variety of genre-hopping original songs composed by the group with always clever lyrics by Lipton… On their glowing, 1960s-TV-special pedestals, in their natty gray suits and black ties like so many Elvis Costello replicants, Lipton and his band aren’t playing people. They are our robots… Lipton Bot is unhurried and as soothing as chamomile, with…an attentive tenderness that, impressively, never slips cheaply toward the sinister…He’s here…to help us achieve our goals. The question is, what are those?…Like all questions at the center of deep-thinking plays, it’s a problem that can feel deceptively manageable at one moment and crushing the next…Under the unaffected hand of Leigh Silverman…it skips elegantly back and forth between profound curiosity and endearing hilarity. A TUNEFUL JEWEL OF A PLAY.”

― Sara Holdren, New York Magazine

“The hepcat stylings of Ethan Lipton and his jazz combo give Lipton’s meticulously funny, often wise We Are Your Robots a delightful throwback air.”

― Helen Shaw, The New Yorker

“We Are Your Robots is delightful, and also a perceptive look at humanity—our foibles, but also, our capacity to grow. Lipton has a particular gift for infusing profound themes with a sense of play.”

― Diep Tran, Playbill

“Many of the rewards are handed out by the ace band…versatile, nimble instrumentalists. The narrative is just as fleet.”

― The New York Times

“Smart…Jazzy…Bluesy…warm, intimate instrumentals…anchored by Lipton’s light baritone growl.”

― Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review

“Ethan Lipton is a theatrical man of many talents—a playwright in the traditional sense; a singer-songwriter; front man of the quartet Ethan Lipton and His Orchestra, and creator of musical theater works that hit squarely at the intersection of all of the above…We Are Your Robots is funny, even goofy, but it poses sobering questions about the information economy, privacy, and the fate of humanity. I’m still turning it over in my mind.”

― Loren Noveck, Exeunt

We Are Your Robots

Description

We Are Your Robots is a wry new musical about what happens when a band of robots asks the audience what it really wants from its machines. Obie-winning playwright Ethan Lipton (No Place to Go, Tumacho) has been described as “splitting the difference between Whitmanesque and the dryly zany comedy of James Thurber.” The tunes from an American vernacular of folk, rock and roll, jazz, and country are beguiling, playful and heartfelt and explore the challenges of being human. Directed by two-time Tony nominee Leigh Silverman (Suffs, Yellow Face) and co-produced with Rattlestick Theater, We Are Your Robots features text and songs by Lipton, and music by his bandmates of 20 years: Eben Levy on guitar, Vito Dieterle on saxophone, and Ian Riggs on bass.

Running Time: 80 minutes with no intermission

For a full digital program—including cast and creative team bios, essays on the production, and interviews with the artists—read our 360° Viewfinder.

We Are Your Robots was originally commissioned by: Media Art Xploration, Inc. with support from the Ensemble Studio Theater / Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project and produced by MAXlive in concert version in association with ArKtype.

We Are Your Robots was developed, in part, with assistance from the Orchard Project (www.orchardproject.com), Ari Edelson, Artistic Director.

Creative Capital Awardee 2023

Book and Lyrics by
Ethan Lipton

Music Composed and Performed by
Ethan Lipton, Vito Dieterle,
Eben Levy, and Ian Riggs

Directed by
Leigh Silverman

Scenic Designer
Lee Jellinek
Costume Designer
Alejo Vietti
Lighting Designer
Adam Honoré
Sound Designer
Nevin Steinberg
Projection Designer
Katherine Freer
Properties Supervisor
Jon Knust

Production Stage Manager
Caroline Englander

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Artist Bios

Composers/Performers: Ethan Lipton and His Orchestra

Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra is a quartet featuring Eben Levy (guitar), Ian Riggs (bass), Vito Dieterle (sax), and Ethan Lipton (vocals) that has been making music for 20 years. Ethan writes the songs, and the band arranges them as a quartet. Eben and Ian also contribute underscoring. Theatrical productions include the band musicals NO PLACE TO GO (Obie Award) and THE OUTER SPACE (Lortel nom.), both produced by the Public in Joe’s Pub and directed by Leigh Silverman, and IN PRAISE OF THE UNLIVED LIFE, for Live From the NYPL. The band has released five studio albums, including this year’s DID YOU DO THE THING WE TALKED ABOUT?, and appeared on THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL. In addition to playing all over NYC, the band has performed concerts at venues including SF Jazz, Celebrate Brooklyn, MASS MoCA, Pitchfork Paris, Théâtre de la Ville, the Gate (London), the Troubadour (LA), and most recently at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall accompanied by a 15-piece orchestra and a choir. More info at www.ethanlipton.com

Vocals, Book, Lyrics, Composition and Arrangements: Ethan Lipton

Ethan Lipton (Vocals, Book, Lyrics, Composition and Arrangements) writes plays and songs. Theater productions include TUMACHO, RED-HANDED OTTER, LUTHER, GOODBYE APRIL HELLO MAY, 100 ASPECTS OF THE MOON, and MEAT. Ethan is the 2023 Kleban Prize winner for librettists and a 2023 Creative Capital Grantee. He’s been a Guggenheim Fellow, an Alpert Prize Fellow at MacDowell, a Clubbed Thumb associate artist, a part of the Public’s Emerging Writers Group, a Ryder Farm Fellow, and a Playwrights Realm Page One Fellow. Plays published by Concord Theatricals. Band duties include herder of cats.

Saxophone, Composition and Arrangements: Vito Dieterle

Vito Dieterle (Saxophone, Composition and Arrangements) has played throughout New York and regularly leads his own quartet at venues such as the Roxy Hotel, Saint Tuesday, and Midnight Blue (performance schedule on IG @viterle). Vito has played Little Branch weekly since 2005 and curates that venue’s music program, as well as the music programs of festivals in NYC and around the country. Other duties for Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra include melodica, flute, organ, backup vocals, and conjuror of frittata.

Guitar, Composition and Arrangements: Eben Levy

Eben Levy (Guitar, Composition and Arrangements) is a founding member of the cult 90’s funk band Chucklehead, which still reanimates here and there. Eben has composed and produced music for numerous film, television, and stage productions. Departments with Ethan Lipton & his Orchestra include backup vocals, beats, engineering, and minister of gear.

Double Bass, Composition and Arrangements: Ian M. Riggs

Ian M. Riggs (Double Bass, Composition and Arrangements) has been making music in NYC and the DC area for over two decades. Ian has subbed on Broadway for MEAN GIRLS and PARAMOUR (Cirque du Soleil), and toured with Burning Spear (Hollywood Bowl) and the Lonesome Trio (Bonnaroo). Positions with Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra include backup vocals, keyboard, acoustic guitar, and chairman of the chords.

Leigh Silverman (Director) World Premieres with Ethan Lipton include The Outer Space and No Place to Go (Joe’s Pub) and Tumacho (Clubbed Thumb). Broadway: Yellow Face (Roundabout); Suffs (Tony nom); Violet (Tony nom); Grand Horizons (2ST; Williamstown Theater Festival); The Lifespan of a Fact; Chinglish; Well (Public; ACT; Longacre). Select off-Broadway: Merry Me (NYTW); Suffs (Public); The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (Shed, CTG); Hurricane Diane (NYTW); Harry Clarke (West End, Berkeley Rep, Vineyard/Audible; Lortel nom); Sweet Charity (New Group). Encores: Violet; The Wild Party; Really Rosie. Dykes To Watch Out For (Audible).

Founded in 1994, Rattlestick Theater has been steadfast in supporting diverse, provocative work and fostering the future voices of the American theater. Our mission is to produce adventurous new plays that are formally inventive and theatrically expansive. Now led by Artistic Director Will Davis, the first transgender person to run an off-Broadway theater, Rattlestick is redoubling its efforts to support theater artists who are responding to the complexities of our culture through the radical distribution of resources toward the creation of new theatrical work.

From our historic West Village theater, Rattlestick has produced the first plays and early works of some of today’s leading voices, including Annie Baker (The Aliens, Obie for Best New American Play), Martyna Majok (Ironbound), Diana Oh (mylingerieplay), and Heidi Schreck (There Are No More Big Secrets). We are proud to make Rattlestick a place where some of our nation’s most celebrated playwrights feel safe to test their boldest ideas, including Dael Orlandersmith (Until the Flood), José Rivera (Massacre, Sing to Your Children), Samuel D. Hunter (Lewiston/Clarkson, nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play and the Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play), and Arturo Luíz Soria (Ni Mi Madre, which won a 2023 Obie Award for Best Solo Performance).