MILPITAS, CALIF.: Speedy Eye Repertory, a Silicon Valley theatre firm based final yr in a singular partnership between forward-thinking tech builders and revolutionary theatremakers, has introduced its debut 2023-24 season, which is able to embrace 5 new performs authored fully by Speedy Eye’s personal proprietary AI program, RETina.
“At its essence, theatre is nothing greater than phrases and efficiency, which is why we’re thrilled to launch this experiment on the intersection of the latest frontier of textual content creation and one of many world’s most historical artwork varieties,” stated Hunt Carbondale, creative director and lead developer of Speedy Eye Rep. “We predict these 5 new performs, created by our groundbreaking RETina program, showcase an astonishing new dramatic voice that factors the way in which to the way forward for theatre.”
RETina, developed from language studying code beforehand designed to put in writing warning labels for hair merchandise, reportedly spent most of a current afternoon absorbing the whole lot of Western stage literature, from Euripides to Lynn Nottage—“form of like a crash-course digital MFA,” as Carbondale put it—and commenced to generate potential performs virtually instantly. Its preliminary efforts had been by-product and wildly variable in high quality, Carbondale conceded, however these deficiencies had been offset by subsequent coding that integrated Grotowski, Viewpoints/Suzuki coaching, and ComedySportz.
The season will kick off in September at Speedy Eye’s newly constructed Čapek Theatre with Echoes within the Canyon, an unsettling drama a couple of group of associates, reunited after many years aside, who confront their previous by enjoying a lethal sport of Spin the Bottle.
Subsequent, in November, is Breaking Bread, a poignant comedy/drama a couple of household of immigrants from an unnamed Latin American nation who collect in a significant Midwestern metropolis within the U.S. for the funeral of their much-loved and much-hated patriarch, the place they rediscover the bonds of household and the ability of meals to deliver individuals collectively.
The potential of AI to combine and match genres shall be showcased by Speedy Eye’s vacation providing, Mad Lib Carol, during which Dickens’s basic Christmas story shall be staged within the types of movie noir, Caryl Churchill, and Balinese shadow puppetry.
Kicking off 2024 with a bang shall be The Intersection, a robust interrogation of race, gender, and sophistication in modern America, designed to be enacted by one actor and an viewers volunteer who shall be chosen randomly simply earlier than every evening’s efficiency.
The season’s closing introduced providing, opening in March 2024, shall be a collaborative improv experiment known as Love Language, during which theatregoers will collaborate dwell by way of their units with RETina to crowdsource a script mashing up their varied prompts, with a troupe of six actors available to cold-read the outcomes on the spot.
A closing spring present has but to be programmed, however Carbondale recommended that it could possibly be Speedy Eye’s boldest experiment but.
“We’re engaged on a play during which not solely the script however the design and path shall be created by AI,” he stated. “There’s nonetheless, in the interim, a necessity for precise human beings to do stage and home administration, and to behave within the performs, however our programmers are engaged on an AI answer for that too.”