Malte Johansson with the robot Eddie.
4 June 2026
Theater production featuring robots
In early May, the Theater Academy staged three short plays on its stage. The cast included a robot dog and the humanoid robot Eddie.
The first-year class at the Theater Academy, consisting of ten students, was divided into three groups, each assigned a director and a script. The scripts, on the theme of “forbidden fruit,” had been written at breakneck speed in just three hours by rapper Zakarias “Zacke” Lekberg and playwrights Linda Wincent and Camilla Blomqvist. The next day, rehearsals began in collaboration with actors from Norrbottensteatern, and that same evening, the performance was presented to an audience.
“It was inspiring to work under such a tight schedule with established actors. The challenge was to quickly establish a productive working environment in an ensemble where people have completely different backgrounds. There was no time to overthink things. It was fun to work without any pretensions,” says Olle Jörlin, one of the students.
The play he was in was about a celebrated playwright who has writer’s block and turns to AI for help in writing his new play. Robots were part of the set design. The play sparked thoughts in Olle Jörlin about what art really is and whether it’s right or wrong to use AI to create art.
“I think it will be difficult to replace us actors with AI, which lacks both consciousness and life experience, because performing arts are about drawing on personal expression and experiences. Moreover, performing arts come to life in the interaction with the audience. I don’t think the audience is particularly interested in watching something that hasn’t been created by someone with a consciousness,” he says.
The theater production was created in collaboration with Norrbottensteatern and the Robotics and AI research program.
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