Let me say the quiet part out loud.

AI is not going away.

And, in fact, it’s only expanding.

I’ve seen a lot of new technology since I fell in love with technology in front of a TRS-80 computer from Radio Shack back in 1981.  I’ve seen the introduction of the laptop, the internet, google, social media and more. 

And I’ve never seen anything take off as fast as AI.

So, while we’d all like parts of it to vanish like MySpace . . . it isn’t going to.

With that understanding, the questions are these:

• How do we use it to expand the reach of the theater
• How do we protect our artists and the art from it 

Here’s the good news:

Theater is a human art form . . . bodies in a room, voices in the air, that indescribable thing that happens between a performer and the audience that no algorithm can manufacture. 

And the theater has not only survived every single technological advancement, but it has THRIVED because of exactly that. 

They thought we’d die when the radio was invented. 

And then the TV. (Why would anyone leave the house if you’ve got color dramas in your living room)

And then there was the internet.  And streaming. 

And yet we grew and expanded.

So don’t worry about AI replacing what we do.  (Side note – our friends in film and TV have more significant concerns should be more worried than we are – and I applaud the efforts those unions and all unions across all industries are doing to protect their artists.)

I recently sent my marketing team to a social media conference a few weeks ago and they reported that half the sessions had a focus on AI.  

Every other industry is testing AI and finding ways to ethically and safely use it so we need to as well.

I’ve been testing it myself over the last few weeks and now I want to talk about it. 

Because the conversation shouldn’t be “AI vs. theater.” 

The conversation is: how do we use this tool ethically, strategically, and in a way that protects & not replaces the theatermakers we work with?

Because that is the hard fast rule. 

If you use AI, it should never be to replace the art or the artist.  It should be used to find more efficient ways to get that art into the world.

Here are five ways I think we can do exactly that.

1. Use AI for Research, Not for Replacement

The amount of time I used to spend combing through box office data, competitive titles, grosses, demographic research . . . it was real hours. Hours that could’ve been spent in a rehearsal room, raising money, or even supporting my friends and colleagues in their shows.

AI is a super useful research assistant. Ask it to synthesize trends, pull comparable titles, draft a first-pass market analysis. It’s not going to replace your gut (the thing that tells you this story needs to be told right now) because remember – it is working with info from the past.  (I’m sure it would have said Hamilton was bonkers). 

But it can hand you better information faster so your gut has more to work with.  

The ethical line: you’re using AI to inform your decisions. Not to make them for you.

2. First Drafts for Business Documents, Not for Art

Grant applications. Investor decks. Production timelines. Sponsorship letters. Press releases.

I’m not precious about these. If AI can give me a solid first draft of a budget narrative that I then shape and sharpen, I’m using it. That’s not laziness – that’s leverage. Every hour I save on administrative writing is an hour I get back to spend on the creative work that actually matters.

The pitch deck, sure. The script? No.

3. Marketing Ideation With a Human in the Room

Does AI have taste? Not really. Does it have a feel for what makes a Broadway audience lean forward? Not the way my team does.

But it’s a fast, tireless brainstorm partner that is ready to work when you are. And sometimes the thing it spits out that’s almost right is exactly the spark the room needed.

So if you’re staring at a blank page, you can have it write 10 tag lines (most will be terrible), but one might point you in the right direction.  

I find it to be a great tennis partner.  It’ll always hit the  ball back to you.

4. Audience Feedback Analysis

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we gather and process audience data: focus groups, dial testing, post-show surveys. (If you haven’t read my piece on dial testing during our out-of-town tryout, go back and read that.)

AI can do something really valuable here: it can analyze large volumes of qualitative feedback – open-ended survey responses, social media comments, review patterns — and identify themes faster than any human team can. Not to tell you what to change. But to surface what your audiences are actually feeling.

That’s information. What you do with it is still your call.

5. Accessibility Tools

AI-powered captioning. Audio description tools. Translation services that make your marketing and ticketing accessible to non-English speakers. These technologies are getting better fast and they are making live theater more accessible to audiences who have historically been locked out.  This is one of the strongest use cases for AI in what we do.  And it’s what the theater is about – helping to build a bigger and better community.  

We have the ability to use this tool to GROW our audience instead of letting AI shrink it.  We just have to Luke Skywalker it, and use it for the good side of the force.    

And the ethical use of AI in theater isn’t that complicated. Before you fire up Claude or Chat or one of the thousand new tools coming at you every which way, ask yourself one question: are you using it to support the humans in the room, or to sidestep them?

Support? Use every tool available.

Sidestep? Danger Will Robinson.  That’s where we have a problem.

Theater has survived the printing press, the movies, television, streaming, and a global pandemic. It will survive AI. But only if we stay intentional about what we’re protecting — and smart about the tools that can actually help us protect it.

So . . . are you using AI in what you do?  If so, what for? 

Comment below and let us know.  Together we can share best practices and make the theater a bigger, more vibrant community, while at the same time we can also be our own AI-neighborhood watch to protect our art and our artists.

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