"Solo Date," a stunning exploration of artificial intelligence and lost love by Taiwanese playwright Tsai Pao-chang (蔡柏璋), will debut in the US on May 31 as part of the 2018 San Francisco International Arts Festival.
"Solo Date" tells the story of Ho-Nien, who attempts to reconstruct his deceased lover through artificial intelligence and social media. Innovative, elegant, and deeply moving, "Solo Date" uses new media to explore loneliness and longing, desire, death, human loss, and need.
The performance raises profound ethnical questions surrounding the interactive technologies that humankind increasingly relies upon. The play is also co-supported by the Queer Cultural Center.
"Solo Date deals with pressing issues that speak very much to multiple Bay Area audiences," stated Andrew Wood, director of the San Francisco International Arts Festival. "It questions the ethical and moral choices that confront designers in the tech industry as the lines between virtual personas and real people become ever more blurred."
Director Tsai is an award-winning playwright, actor, and co-artistic director of Tainaner Ensemble, a significant performance powerhouse based in southern Taiwan that uses the Taiwanese language to adapt western dramas.
His first one-man theater production, "Solo Date," was previously performed at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival ("Visually stunning, intellectually and emotionally challenging, and funny; this piece cuts to the heart of contemporary concerns, and provides a radically new dimension to the timeless theme of love" - The Skinny) and Arts Electronica Festival in Austria.
For the upcoming San Francisco showcase, "Solo Date" will run from May 31 through June 2 at Southside Theater of the Fort Mason Center for Arts.
Performance
- Venue: Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture
- Address: Landmark Building C, 2 Marina Blvd, San Francisco, CA
- Date: May 31 (8.30pm), June 1 (7pm), and June 2 (3pm)
Artist Talk
Workshop