2021 (2026)
Created by Cole Lewis, Patrick Blenkarn, Sam Ferguson
Produced by Guilty by Association
co-Produced by The Elbow Theatre and STUDIO FUNFUG
Developed with support from the National Arts Centre of Canada’s National Creation Fund and Theater Mitu
Under the glow of a flickering screen, a daughter reconstructs her deceased father. Pixel by pixel, contradiction by contradiction.
2021 is a live performance where theatre, AI, and video-game storytelling converge, blurring the boundary between human remembrance and machine logic. An audience member steps into the role of Brian, an unhoused veteran reliving his final weeks inside a looping digital hospital: a labyrinth of corridors, bureaucratic dead ends, and fleeting human contact. Guided by his daughter’s narration, fragments of data become playable memory. Each decision glitches reality a little more.
How do we provide dignity in death to those we fundamentally disagree with? Part elegy, part experiment, 2021 exposes the tenderness and terror of digital resurrection. It asks not whether machines can think, but whether memory itself is a kind of simulation.
2021 is a live narrated video game designed for a participatory performance, accompanied by live music.
2021 is a collaborative storytelling event between performers, audience members, and AI.
2021 is an exploration of the significance of human data and the challenges of preserving dignity in death for those we fundamentally disagree with.
Intimate, emotional, and cerebral, 2021 is a show about the messiness of being alive in an increasingly technological world, with its story unfolding through a video game played on stage by one audience member as a stand-in for Cole's unhoused Veteran father, Brian. In playing the game, the player reenacts Brian's final weeks in a New Jersey hospital, with Cole (his real daughter) live narrating the journey, accompanied by a live musician.
The show will premiere in New York and Vancouver in January 2026.
For more information, click here
PRESENTATIONS
2026.1.9-18 | Theater Mitu x Under the Radar, Brooklyn, USA
2026.1.23-24 | PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Vancouver, CA
2026.6.4-5 | TBA, Halifax, CA
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
2022.8.15-2022.8.30 | Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media, New Haven, USA
2023.7.30-12.31 | Tarragon Theatre Greenhouse Residency, Toronto, CA
2024.1.11-20 | Tarragon Theatre Greenhouse Festival, Toronto, CA
2023.1.22-1.24 | Nightswimming Theatre Pure Research Workshops, Toronto, CA
2024.8.5-16 | Theater Mitu Artists at Home Residency, Brooklyn, USA
2024.9.1-2025.9.1 | Playwrights Workshop Montreal Residency, Montreal, CA
2025.7.2-8 | Brock University, St. Catharines, CA
2025.10.9-16 | Theater im Pumpenhaus, Münster, DE
2025.12.1-12 | Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, CA
Artist Talks and Workshops focusing on 2021
2023.11.2, Artist Talk, Machine as Medium Symposium, Yale CCAM, New Haven
2024.1.24, Workshop, Nightswimming Pure Research, Toronto
2024.2.1 Artist Talk, RUBIX, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto
2024.6.14 Artist Talk, FOLDA/Howlround, Kingston
2024.10.22 Artist Talk, Queens University, Kingston
2024.6.5 Artist Talk, FOLDA, Kingston
Press and Publications focusing on 2021
“2021: Reflections on a Work in Process” The CCAM Maquette: Machine as Medium, Yale University (forthcoming)
Preview, The Georgia Straight (forthcoming)
PuSh Play Podcast: Episode 57, Influence, Build, Become
10 Toronto Stage Artists To Keep An Eye On This Winter
The good and the bad (and everything in between)
Review: Tarragon’s Greenhouse Festival grows works-in-progress with audience
CREDITS
Co-creation, Data Curation, Performance:
Cole Lewis
Co-creation, Programming, Performance:
Patrick Blenkarn
Co-creation, Programming, Music + Sound Design:
Sam Ferguson
3D Modelling and Environments:
Eric Ing
2D Illustration and Animation:
Clarissa Picolo
Lighting Design:
Itai Erdal
Scenic Design:
Helen Yung
Projection Design + Technologist:
Wladimiro A. Woyno R.
Choreography:
Heidi Strauss
Technical Direction:
Alex Grozdanis
AI Consultant:
David Rokeby
Disability Producer:
Anika Vervecken
Dramaturgical Consultant:
Fatma Sarah Elkashef
Partners
Developed in association with the National Arts Centre of Canada’s National Creation Fund, in part through Mitu’s Artists at Home, and with the support of Canada Council for the Arts, Tarragon Theatre, Nightswimming Theatre, Design + Technology Lab, The Chrysalis, DART at Brock University, Playwrights Workshop Montreal, Precursor Lab, Theater im Pumpenhaus, and BMO Lab
