The Sixth Biennial Symposium on Arts and Technology

The Improvisational Theater Space is an interactive stage where human actors can perform accompanied by virtual actors. Virtual actors are modeled as animated \Media Creatures" that are behavior-based automous software agents. We used Artiical Life programming methods and behavior-based design to avoid rigid scripting of performers and media interaction. Media Creatures allow content to be active and to present itself to the user by dynamically adapting to the context of the interaction. We used Media Creatures to create an engaging Improvisational Theater Space where the user/performer is involved in an improvisational dialogue with a typographic actor. The Improvisational Theater Space uses real time computer vision, speech recognition and and speech anlaysis to sense the perfomer's actions on stage.