''Wow, it's huge,'' she said getting in the tub.
''It's going to totally upstage me. It's so beautiful. I haven't had one this big - it's quite comfy.''
She said the claw foot beauty was the 10th tub she had used in five countries.
The bath was provided by the Otago Museum for Stempel's three Arts Festival Dunedin performances.
Museum project and production officer Garry Gibson, who delivered the tub to the theatre yesterday, said it had been used for a science exhibition but was surplus to requirements.
Stempel said her first tub was from a Czech recycling plant and another came from the basement of a 19th-century townhouse in Philadelphia.
''It was fetched by five drag queens on the hottest day of the year.''
She is looking forward to the Dunedin premiere tonight and was impressed by the theatre.
''It's great.''
Stempel arrived in Dunedin yesterday after performing in Waikanae, on the Kapiti Coast, where the audience drew ''beautiful'' pictures of her naked. She added the pictures to her vast collection of life drawings of herself, she said.
''It was a treat because pretty much everyone in the audience were artists, or were artists 30 years ago, and had returned to life drawing again, or were very much into it, which was really nice. I got some really good drawings.''
Waikanae had set the bar high but she expected Dunedin artists to create art ''organically'' over the next three nights
