One of the reasons I love theater is that it has the power to bring your imagination to life and make it a physical presence right before you. Theater presents imaginary scenes on stage which are not real, yet not as unreal as what you see on a screen. Playwrights have long been fascinated by the theater’s ability to realize what was once only imaginary. For example, consider Shakespeare’s famous line “the poet’s pen turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name”.
Generative AI now has the ability to turn the airy nothing of your imagination into a shape. I am particularly impressed by Google Gemini’s ability to generate imaginary production stills of famous plays. I’ve always liked the photos you find in some printed plays which capture a dramatic moment of a performance. Now I can generate as many production stills as I like. I can specify a Broadway or an East End production and I can ask for a Victorian or a modern production. For example, here is the production still that Gemini created based on the prompt “Create a black and white performance still of a Victorian theater production of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s play The Cenci capturing a dramatic moment.”
Eventually it occurred to me to give one of my own plays the “AI treatment”. I have a 10 minute play called “Server Farm” which has never received a production. “Server Farm” was written before data centers became a big issue, but it concerns the encroachment of industrial IT infrastructure upon a traditionally rural community, so it is a bit prescient. My first prompt was “Read the script of my play Server Farm and create a performance photo of a Broadway production of the play. Capture a dramatic moment in the play.” I did upload a PDF of the play so Gemini had something to base this on.
This stage design is a little cluttered but it does show a rustic farm kitchen with lots of potted plants and computer equipment. I had not imagined so many server boxes and networking equipment in the kitchen. The scene is definitely set in a theater because you can see the audience in the shadows and the stage lights.
Next I prompted Gemini to create the costume designs. There are only two characters in the play so I only needed two costume designs. This was my prompt “Create a sketch of a costume design for FLINT for the Broadway production of the play Server Farm.”
Here you can see that Gemini specified the fabrics and the color scheme. FLINT is wearing a technology themed T-shirt but otherwise he is dressed like a handyman. Next there is the costume design for CHARLOTTE. For the prompt I merely changed the character name.
Gemini did not specify the fabric or color scheme but it did provide notes on every aspect of her costume. This costume was designed with consideration for her role in the play.
Finally I asked Gemini to create the promotional poster for a Broadway production of the play “Server Farm”. I’m not very happy with what it came up with but I guess it is a little clever.
I find this to be very inspiring. It allows me to imagine what a theater company might do with my play if it wanted to invest the money into a lavish production. This may also encourage me to write more plays based on what I imagine Google Gemini would create for the production stills and stage design. Some day you will even be able to generate a movie version of your 10 minute play but I suspect that would cost a lot of money. Google Gemini created all these images for me for free!
I’m not sure what the theater community would make of all this. They would probably hate it! I think it would be fun to submit a play without a description of the set. Instead I would provide the prompt for generating the stage design.
