Two new plays that premiered last week at the Flag Stop Theatre and Arts Festival in Whistler will premiere at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast on August 23.

The one-act plays, developed by the nonprofit Point Artist-Run Centre in Gibsons, Vancouver and Whistler, explore the allure and pitfalls of new technologies, focusing on cryptocurrencies and chatbots with artificial intelligence.

When Stephen Vogler wrote Aye Aye AI, “AI was in the news every day,” he said. Vogler is a published author, playwright and musician from Whistler. “Every day I heard a new story about a different aspect of life that it had infiltrated. And I had a lot of fun with it.”

The plot revolves around a theatre company in desperate need of a new script, and the Canada Council funding to keep the group afloat. A quartet of characters agree on a technical solution: they commission OpenAI’s ChatGPT software to write the script for them. Unexpected drama ensues as the play-within-a-play devolves into an existential (and comedic) tug-of-war between flesh-and-blood actors and bold artificial intelligences.

“I believe that artificial intelligence threatens many jobs in the arts,” Vogler added, “but I feel that as a musician, writer or actor, this still remains a domain of human creation. But this piece offers an opportunity to grapple with that question and see where it leads.”

A previous play by Vogler, About The Moose, premiered at the 2019 Flag Stop Festival and has been performed at theatres in Gibsons, Powell River and the Maury Young Arts Centre in Whistler Village. Aye Aye AI is directed by Kathy Daniels and Carla Fuhre, both actors and directors at Between Shifts Theatre in Squamish.

The other work that premiered on the floating stage of the Flag Stop Theatre (a wooden dock anchored in Alta Lake in Whistler) is Crypto Caper, written by novelist and playwright Alan Forsythe. The madcap mystery is set in a remote mountain inn, where a mysterious “influencer” couple offers to pay their bill in cryptocurrency, awakening a latent appetite for detective work in one of the inn’s two owners.

“Crypto Caper” was directed by Gibson-based filmmaker, actress, writer and director Angie Nolan, whose career began as a teenager on the set of the long-running CBC television series “The Beachcombers.”

“It shows the confusion and lack of understanding most people have about what crypto actually is,” Nolan said. “Two of the characters on stage have no idea what it is at all. They barely know what social influence is. After some identity confusion, silly chaos ensues.”

The Point Artist-Run Centre was founded in 2009 by a group of Whistler artists who converted the Whistler Hostel on Alta Lake (formerly known as Cypress Lodge) into an arts centre. During the four-day Flag Stop Theatre and Arts Festival, the group presents plays at three venues across Whistler – including the floating plywood-planked stage.

“The plays were just the perfect content for the environment,” Nolan added. “There was just enough lightness and thought-provoking stuff and the energy that you have when you’re out together. It felt like a shared experience, but it will also be really nice to be in a theater.”

Aye Aye AI and Crypto Caper will be performed as a double bill at the Heritage Playhouse on August 23. Tickets are available online ($20) through thepointartists.com or for $25 at the door.