The following chapters provide additional proof of the enduring vitality of theatre about science. They portray a number of diverse initiatives exploring different scientific subjects, with social intervention facets, addressing pressing contemporary issues such as ecological (un)sustainability, mental health prevalence, and the ethical implications of technological advances. They also reveal a progressive integration of theatre companies and practitioners in scientific projects.

In this position paper, we review the eclectic recent history of academic and artistic works involving computational systems for humor generation, and focus specifically on live performance. We make the case that AI comedy should be evaluated in live conditions, in front of audiences sharing either physical or online spaces, and under real-time constraints. We further suggest that improvised comedy is therefore the perfect substrate for deploying and assessing computational humor systems. Using examples of successful AI-infused shows, we demonstrate that live performance raises three sets of challenges for computational humor generation: 1) questions around robotic embodiment, anthropomorphism and competition between humans and machines, 2) questions around comedic timing and the nature of audience interaction, and 3) questions about the human interpretation of seemingly absurd AI-generated humor. We argue that these questions impact the choice of methodologies for evaluating computational humor, as any such method needs to work around the constraints of live audiences and performance spaces. These interrogations also highlight different types of collaborative relationship of human comedians towards AI tools.

Our work explores how audiences perceive and engage with remote music events. The shift to digital platforms has transformed the live music experience, leading to the rise of remote music performances. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, platforms such as Twitch have been repurposed and surged in popularity as meaningful outlets for live music dissemination. Concurrently, novel platforms specifically crafted for music events have begun to emerge. Understanding the preferences and challenges of remote music audiences is crucial because it guides the development of platforms that effectively answer varied user needs, which could enhance overall engagement and shape the future of music consumption. For this, we employed a qualitative multi-method approach, including a survey, interviews, and event observations, to start mapping the design space of remote music performances and capture a wide spectrum of audience perspectives. Our findings reveal audience engagement patterns in remote music events across different digital platforms, highlighting unmet needs, desires as well as opportunities for future HCI work in this area.

This paper examines the design of technology for remote music performances, from the perspective of their audiences. In this process, we involved a total of 104 participants across the different stages of our project. Initially, we collected qualitative data from remote audiences using several methods, including surveys, interviews, and observations. Through the thematic analysis of this data, we identified four design dimensions consisting of 17 key elements that illustrate what audiences value in remote music spaces. We applied these insights in a participatory design workshop with diverse stakeholders, contributing to the development of speculative design ideas in this field. The paper concludes by presenting key design insights for future technology advancements in remote music performances. The research contributes to the evolving design space of remote music performances, offering valuable perspectives for researchers, designers, and industry stakeholders.

Social robotics researchers are increasingly interested in multi-party trained conversational agents. With a growing demand for real-world evaluations, our study presents Large Language Models (LLMs) deployed in a month-long live show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This case study investigates human improvisers co-creating with conversational agents in a professional theatre setting. We explore the technical capabilities and constraints of on-the-spot multi-party dialogue, providing comprehensive insights from both audience and performer experiences with AI on stage. Our human-in-the-loop methodology underlines the challenges of these LLMs in generating context-relevant responses, stressing the user interface's crucial role. Audience feedback indicates an evolving interest for AI-driven live entertainment, direct human-AI interaction, and a diverse range of expectations about AI's conversational competence and utility as a creativity support tool. Human performers express immense enthusiasm, varied satisfaction, and the evolving public opinion highlights mixed emotions about AI's role in arts.

Video Feedback (VF) in tele-conferences is reported to contribute to ‘Zoom Fatigue’ (ZF). However, such feedback is important for many remote collaborative tasks where users must be aware of their relationship to the camera. Tele-immersion (TI) is presented as an alternative to traditional interfaces that can mitigate symptoms of ZF while maintaining the benefit of VF. The effects of TI on behaviour are understudied. Therefore, we present the findings of a novel field study of 14 domain experts performing a remote collaborative task—improvisational theatre—under all three conditions: 1) with video feedback (VF) in an isolated window, 2) within a tele-immersive environment, and 3) without video feedback at all. A qualitative study was conducted using surveys measuring improv performance metrics. ‘Physical engagement’ and ‘presence’ were perceived highest with tele-immersion, while ‘attunement’ and ‘flow’ between performers were comparable between tele-immersion and no mirror. Isolated VF was perceived worse for most conditions.

The acoustic and visual experiences of musicians in the spaces they perform in are complex and organic in nature, entailing a continuous interaction with the environment. With this project, we leverage the power of Virtual Reality (VR) to support musicians in their creative practice by transporting them to novel sonic and visual worlds. For this, we developed a musician-centred VR system, featuring various acoustic and visual virtual environments, VR Rehearse & Perform, based on design requirements gathered with musicians and performance experts. To investigate how VR can be designed to support music-makers in their creative musical practice, we performed iterative tests with 19 musicians followed by semi-structured interviews. Our findings suggest that VR has the potential to support different aspects of the creative musical practice, such as rehearsing, performing and improvising. Our research provides insights and inspirations toward designing musician-centred VR experiences for various musical activities.

The acoustic and visual experiences of musicians in the spaces they perform in are complex and organic in nature, entailing a continuous interaction with the environment. With this project, we leverage the power of Virtual Reality (VR) to support musicians in their creative practice by transporting them to novel sonic and visual worlds. For this, we developed a musician-centred VR system, featuring various acoustic and visual virtual environments, VR Rehearse & Perform, based on design requirements gathered with musicians and performance experts. To investigate how VR can be designed to support music-makers in their creative musical practice, we performed iterative tests with 19 musicians followed by semi-structured interviews. Our findings suggest that VR has the potential to support different aspects of the creative musical practice, such as rehearsing, performing and improvising. Our research provides insights and inspirations toward designing musician-centred VR experiences for various musical activities.

Performers acutely need but lack tools to remotely rehearse and create live theatre, particularly due to global restrictions on social interactions during the Covid-19 pandemic. No studies, however, have heretofore examined how remote video-collaboration affects performance. This paper presents the findings of a field study with 16 domain experts over six weeks investigating how tele-immersion affects the rehearsal and performance of improvisational theatre. To conduct the study, an original media server was developed for co-locating remote performers into shared virtual 3D environments which were accessed through popular video conferencing software. The results of this qualitative study indicate that tele-immersive environments uniquely provide performers with a strong sense of co- presence, feelings of physical connection, and an increased ability to enter the social-flow states required for improvisational theatre. Based on our observations, we put forward design recommendations for video collaboration tools tailored to the unique demands of live performance.

Large language models can be used for collaborative storytelling. In this work we report on using GPT-3 \cite{brown2020language} to co-narrate stories. The AI system must track plot progression and character arcs while the human actors perform scenes. This event report details how a novel conversational agent was employed as creative partner with a team of professional improvisers to explore long-form spontaneous story narration in front of a live public audience. We introduced novel constraints on our language model to produce longer narrative text and tested the model in rehearsals with a team of professional improvisers. We then field tested the model with two live performances for public audiences as part of a live theatre festival in Europe. We surveyed audience members after each performance as well as performers to evaluate how well the AI performed in its role as narrator. Audiences and performers responded positively to AI narration and indicated preference for AI narration over AI characters within a scene. Performers also responded positively to AI narration and expressed enthusiasm for the creative and meaningful novel narrative directions introduced to the scenes. Our findings support improvisational theatre as a useful test-bed to explore how different language models can collaborate with humans in a variety of social contexts.

Rosetta Code provides improv theatre performers with artificial intelligence (AI)-based technology to perform shows understandable across many different languages. We combine speech recognition, improv chatbots and language translation tools to enable improvisers to communicate with each other while being understood—or comically misunderstood—by multilingual audiences. We describe the technology underlying Rosetta Code, detailing the speech recognition, machine translation, text generation and text-to-speech subsystems. We then describe scene structures that feature the system in performances in multilingual shows (9 languages). We provide evaluative feedback from performers, audiences, and critics. From this feedback, we draw analogies between surrealism, absurdism, and multilingual AI improv. Rosetta Code creates a new form of language-based absurdist improv. The performance remains ephemeral and performers of different languages can express themselves and their culture while accommodating the linguistic diversity of audiences.

Embodied historiography is the practice of regarding performers as documents that are meant to be historically read and accounted for, in which the act of performance exposes our subjective processing of memory and historical events through the live layering of multiple perspectives. The Veterans Project is an ongoing work of embodied historiography in which veterans of the American military appear onstage in an unscripted forum where they are invited to share their stories. However, the individual narratives that emerge are in turn consistently interrupted/disrupted through the utilization of an evolving media system, inspired in large part by the work of Vilém Flusser that interjects various video, audio, and graphic media into the conversation. By consciously interrupting and thereby rupturing the narratives that each individual soldier has crafted with respect to his or her own historical framing of memory, we resist political teleology in both historiography and performance. The experience of these ruptures by the audience ultimately opens space for the contemporary experience of art that was promised by the historical avant-garde before becoming historical. By examining the framing, rehearsal, performance, and aftermath of The Veterans Project as it was recently staged in Phoenix, Arizona, a focal point for some of the most contentious ongoing political debates in the United States, we outline a methodology for embodied historiography in this article that can be leveraged within other fields of knowledge for the purpose of experiencing art

In 2020 - 2021 , a pandemic caused a global shut down of the performance of live theatre. This led to many artists without creative outlets, many companies having to modify their programming, and, in an unfortunately large number of cases, the complete shutdown of theatres and companies. This circumscription led to a burst of technological innovation to support new ways to connect performers and audiences. In this work, we present two such innovations: Rosetta Code and Virtual Director . Rosetta Code is a tool for improvisation, live or online, which allows for simultaneous translation, enabled by artificial intelligence. The Virtual Director is a platform for tele-immersive performance. In the hands of multilingual cast members, the Virtual Director augments Rosetta Code to create online multilingual improv shows. We describe these platforms and provide descriptions and reflections on two performances of Improbotics Online which used the Virtual Director to bring together audience members and performers from around the world. These performances were part of the 2020 Paris Fringe and Improbotics Online received positive reviews and an award for the Most Innovative Show of the festival. We conclude this work by discussing the potential for mixed-presence international shows as we emerge from physical and social distancing requirements and how our tools will continue to support online and on-site performances. We have sparked a creative ratcheting effect: performers are enabled to tell new and interesting stories, and are inspired to suggest innovations which improve the tools with which they perform. These innovations are deployed in future performances. This positive feedback loop is a metaphor for the fundamental theory of improvisational: Accept and Expand.