November 12-14, 2026

An interactive performance where story, video games, and AI collide, questioning the ethics of digital resurrection and the weight of loss: If we could bring back the dead, even as data, should we? 

Created by Cole Lewis, Patrick Blenkarn, Sam Ferguson
Produced by Guilty by Association
Co-produced by The Elbow Theatre and STUDIO FUNFUG

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. 

Developed with support from the National Arts Centre of Canada’s National Creation Fund and Theater Mitu  

2021 is visiting through the Wirtz Artist in Residence program.

Approximate run time: 90-120 minutes, variable based on audience participation. No intermission
Suggested ages: 14+

A Note on Sensitive Content is available for this production.