Theatre + AI Workshop
October – November 2025, for Foothill College Theatre Department
Goal
To create a relevant introduction to AI literacy for community college theatre students, resulting in a student-designed chatbot experience to present to an audience of an upcoming performance of RUR: Rossom’s Universal Robots.
Process
I worked with theatre faculty to plan a lobby installation of one or more student-designed chatbots, with an invitation to audience members to use them to converse with the intelligent robots in the world of RUR while also experiencing current AI technology.
I also adapted AI literacy materials from Stanford CRAFT and the AI Tinkery to create a workshop aligned with the performance goals and specific for the production.
Solution
About 40 cast and crew members participated in the workshops with about half the group reporting almost no previous experience with AI. Participants were asked to brainstorm a character in the world of RUR, and an interaction that their character might have with an audience member, such as offering a tour of the robot’s factory.
By the end of the workshops, all participants had successfully created a unique chatbot. Theatre arts faculty then invited students to continue developing their chatbot to include in the lobby display.
Skills
workshop facilitation
AI literacy
AI in arts education
prototyping with Playlab.ai
Outcome
Four students continued developing their chatbots for the lobby installation, which was available throughout the run of the show.
We saw audiences engage with the chatbots, creating a thought-provoking, comedic, slightly creepy experience which supported the themes of the performance and connected them to current concerns about AI.