AI and dramaturgy: writing a “Molière-style” play took two years, while Molière might have done it in two weeks
A bold theatrical experiment has taken far longer than one might expect: whereas Molière was reputed to be capable of writing a play in just two weeks, the current project—co-writing an imagined Molière play with artificial intelligence—has taken two years to develop. This discrepancy highlights how, even with generative tools, creating a coherent, performable drama is no trivial task.
The experiment involves university students, theater artists, and AI working together to generate dialogue, plot threads, and stylistic elements, which are then refined, curated, and woven into a complete piece. That such a process requires protracted iteration underlines the complexities of style transfer, narrative consistency, and artistic judgment when mixing human and machine creativity.
This temporal contrast also raises provocative questions: does AI really speed up artistic production? Or does it shift the time cost into stages of editing, curation, and creative filtering? In this case, the two-year gestation suggests that true theatrical craftsmanship—even assisted by algorithms—still demands patience, collaboration, and close human guidance.
May 5 - 6, 2026
