Arie is a former sex bot reprogrammed with incredibly advanced AI by scientist Alice (Alison Bruce) that allows her to experience emotion. There are so many deeply feminist themes that writer Emily Perkins has woven through The Made. Why were you keen to play Arie in The Made? Having a space where we can both keep exploring, understanding and celebrating our version of queerness, as a couple and as individuals, is really special. I feel very fortunate to currently have a great relationship with my partner, a queer man himself, where there is space for additional partners and/or lovers. It’s a complex realm I’m sure a lot of queers, particularly bi/pan, women can relate to. There’s been a lot of conscious unlearning. I’ve had meaningful relationships with men and women, but had always felt a lot of my relationships and interactions with women were hindered by this potentially internalized male-gaze perception of my queerness. There is some incredible representation and education around queer identities these days, but even as recently as the 2000s it just wasn’t like that. I’d say most women have been shaped by patriarchal and misogynistic norms in some way. I never intended to be and never wanted to be, but I was.

In my formative years of the late-90s to mid-2000s, so much queer-femininity was very male-gaze-y – think the fetishisation of femme woman-on-woman in porn, “lipstick-lesbian” ideals etc. I’m very drawn to strong femmes and present very femme (which 100% means other women often think I’m just engaging in “friendly gal-talk” when really I’m attempting to flirt) but it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve really understood how the era I grew up in shaped my queerness. My personal expression is constantly shapeshifting, but I’ve always been very drawn to archetypes of femininity and the ways in which they can be exaggerated, manipulated or celebrated. What does identifying as queer personally mean to you? Hannah chats to express about becoming Arie, intimacy coordination and unlearning a male-gaze perception of queerness. When Auckland Theatre Company cast the role of Arie in Emily Perkins’ The Made, they found that actor in Hannah Tasker-Poland, a queer progressive-feminist fresh from producing her own first full-length work, The Most Naked. They say there is a role that every actor was born to play.

Hannah tasker poland