What happens when robots (and children) take to the stage?

The Baxter Project built upon my preceding research into the implications of robots that perform as dramatic characters in plays. The Project was explorative in form and reflectively playful and imaginative in its approaches. In a little under six months, the project explored the creative possibilities and challenges of casting Baxter the robot on stage alongside human performers. Performance workshops with students, robot, and sometimes children explored dramatic elements such as story and character, as well as theatrical elements including song, physicality, voice, and face. Through these workshops, the project inquired into the forms and relationships of human and robot; interrogated assumptions about human beings and machines, and the kinds of narratives that structure them; and explored performative ingredients necessary for effective sociable robot- human interaction.