Performance

We created a choose-your-own-adventure telephone call. It was a conversation between Tim (played by Di) and Lisa (played by Alice), in which Tim has a gambling problem and turns to Lisa for advice. The audience was asked for feedback on what Tim should say to Lisa in response to many different questions and inquiries. Because Alice (act as Lisa) would not be in Pittsburgh the date of the presentation, we pre-recorded many different clips of her voice to "respond" to whichever option the audience chose for Tim to say. We distributed our "voting lollipops" which could be flipped to show orange on one side, and purple on the other. This is how the audience would communicate their option to the performers - they would raise the "lollipop" with the correct corresponding color to vote for each option. Because each different option presented to the audience will affect what Lisa is going to respond, the outcome turns out to be emergent and indeterministic. 

Although all responses were prerecorded and different pathways of the plots were pre-designed, the audience did not know which two choices they will have for Tim, what Lisa would "say" in response to their choices, or to which direction their choices would lead the plot in. Therefore, similarly to the Game of Life which follows a set algorithm, the actual implementation of the performance is indeterminate. 

Two example pathways of our story are presented as follows: 

1. In the "good" one, the audience chose a good start ("ask if Paul told on Tim") and were consistent on their idea about kidnapping Paul all the time; therefore, a "good" ending (Lisa and Paul are going to meet and discuss how to kidnap Paul in detail) was reached.