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Livermore’s SPARC Theater is embracing its hometown’s reputation for scientific and technological innovation in a new way next year that promises to challenge the old guard and contemporary creators alike: producing a play penned entirely by artificial intelligence.
Planned as part of the nonprofit theater company’s fifth annual Science@Play series, the yet-unnamed play is envisioned as “a bold experiment in machine-made creativity developed with input from community members who will help shape the storyline”, according to SPARC officials.
“It’s a risk, absolutely,” program director Michael Wayne Rice said in a press release. “But AI is one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs in recent memory, and this series is about exploring the edge where science meets humanity. Why not push that boundary on our stage?”
The AI-written play will be performed by human actors in semi-staged, script-in-hand showings from March 13-15 at SPARC Studio in downtown Livermore. A post-show discussion will follow each installment, producers said.
AI will also be a central theme to the second production in the 2026 Science@Play series, a newly commissioned play by Cleavon Smith, professor of theater arts at Oregon State University and a U.S. military veteran.
“Smith’s play follows a couple who turn to researchers — and their AI tools — to rekindle lost intimacy, only to risk numbing themselves to the very pain that could lead to healing,” according to SPARC officials, who did not reveal the name of the play. It will be performed in the similar, semi-staged structure March 27-29.
“The play is about the tension between comfort and growth,” Smith said. “Sometimes, the hard conversations and shared struggles are exactly what bring us back to each other.”
Reflecting on the totality of the bold 2026 series, which sets out to “push the boundaries of creativity and connection”, SPARC executive artistic director Lisa Tromovitch added, “This program is built on the idea that science doesn’t have to be distant: it can be personal, emotional, and deeply theatrical.”
