A pair of new plays inaugurated last week at Whistler’s Flag Stop Theatre and Arts Festival will have their Sunshine Coast premieres at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons on Aug. 23.
The one-act works, which were developed in Gibsons, Vancouver and Whistler by the nonprofit Point Artist-Run Centre, explore the allure and pitfalls of emerging technology. Both cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence chatbots take the spotlight.
As Stephen Vogler was penning Aye Aye AI, “A.I. just kept being in the news every day,” he said. Vogler is a published author, playwright, and musician based in Whistler. “Every day I’d hear another story about some other aspect of life that it infiltrated. And I had a lot of fun with it.”
The plot revolves around a theatre company desperately in need of a new script, and the Canada Council funding that will keep the company alive. A quartet of characters settle on a technological solution: engage OpenAI’s ChatGPT software to write it for them. Unexpected drama ensues as the play within the play spins into an existential (and comedic) tug-of-war between flesh-and-blood thespians and audacious artificial intelligences.
“I think artificial intelligence threatens a lot of jobs in the arts area,” added Vogler, “but my feeling is that as musicians, writers or actors, it still remains the province of human creation. But this play provides the opportunity to tackle the question and see where it lands.”
An earlier play by Vogler, About The Moose, premiered at the 2019 Flag Stop Festival, and played at theatres in Gibsons, Powell River and at the Maury Young Arts Centre in Whistler Village. Aye Aye AI is directed by Kathy Daniels and Carla Fuhre, both actors and directors with Between Shifts Theatre in Squamish.
The other work that opened on Flag Stop Theatre’s floating stage (a wooden wharf anchored in Whistler’s Alta Lake) is Crypto Caper, composed by novelist and playwright Alan Forsythe. The madcap mystery is set in a remote mountain inn where a secretive “influencer” couple offers to cover their tab using cryptocurrency, awakening a latent appetite for sleuthing in one of the institution’s duo of proprietors.
Crypto Caper is directed by Gibsons-based filmmaker, actor, writer and director Angie Nolan, whose career started when she was a teenager on the set of the long-running CBC-TV series The Beachcombers.
“It highlights the confusion and the non-understanding of most people about what crypto actually is,” said Nolan. “Two of the characters onstage have no idea what it is at all. They barely even know what social influencing is. After some mistaken identities, silly chaos ensues.”
The Point Artist-Run-Centre was formed by a group of Whistler artists in 2009 who converted the Whistler Hostel on Alta Lake (formerly known as the Cypress Lodge) into an arts centre. During the four-day Flag Stop Theatre and Arts Festival, the group presents plays in three venues throughout Whistler — including its plywood-planked floating stage.
“The plays were just the perfect content for the environment,” added Nolan. “There was just enough levity and thought-provoking things and the energy of being out in the elements together. It felt like a joint experience, but it will be really nice to be inside a theatre, too.”
Aye Aye AI and Crypto Caper will be presented as a double bill at the Heritage Playhouse on Aug. 23. Tickets are available online ($20) via thepointartists.com or by paying $25 at the door.
