The [Theatre] Play

“Immerse yourself in collaborative creation at Tarragon Theatre’s groundbreaking event! Join Griffin, Anahita, and Aidan as they guide you through a unique journey where the audience becomes the playwright. Harnessing the power of AI, together we’ll weave a tapestry of stories, emotions, and imagination, shaping a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience. Don’t just watch the play, become a part of its creation!” – an obviously AI-generated synopsis of The [Theatre] Play.

Developed through my Bulmash-Siegel Award and Residency at Tarragon Theatre, The [Theatre] Play is the result of dozens of interviews with Tarragon community members. Those interviews revealed the ways so many people care so much about that institution but have such different—and even divergent—ideas of what it is and who it's for. It was devised by Revelations Collective (Anahita Dehbonehie, Aidan Morishita-Miki and myself), with support from University of Toronto BMO Lab Director and installation artist David Rokeby, one of Canada’s leading AI x performance pioneers and experts.

The result— less “staged reading” and more “staged writing”—is a live art experience billed as a work-in-progress where a group of 40 audience members uses a customized Llama 3-based Large Language Model (LLM) to create the “perfect” Tarragon play.

But the experience soon devolves into a tension-filled pressure cooker as its creators turn on each other—surreptitiously embodying and dramatizing competing desires. AI is normative: predictive text gravitates to the most likely next word, making it a powerful metaphor for understanding power at the center and at the margins. 

‍The [Theatre] Play is about community and institutions; it's about identity and "seeing ourselves on stage"; and it's about ego, and the very personal reasons we make and consume art in the first place. 

Photos by Cameron Johnston.

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