Speculative Theater: Recollections
Theater recovers meaning from what is seen and remembered, our memories recover meaning from the past and carry it forward. For us in the present, memories are the closest thing we have to time travel.
Inspired by findings at The August Wilson Archive at the University of Pittsburgh, The Time Travel Agency presents Recollections, the first production of Speculative Theater in the world.
In November 2024, we closed this production after a six-month journey by hosting a topping out party (a celebration that takes place when the final beam is raised into place during a construction project), where a construction crew of 62 time travelers prototyped what the theater would look like and wrote more of the screenplaytogether. The party included a ribbon cutting ceremony and traditional fence signing by the crew.
This special production featured CMU artists–designers Shannon Wei and Arin Pantja. And was a collaborative effort between us in Pittsburgh, Sofia Ivarsson in Denmark, and creative branding studio VVORKROOM in Barcelona and Mexico City. The documentary work was done by Shannon Wei.
Our work for the University and the Archive was a success not just because we invented a whole world around a new art form directly related to August Wilson, but because through this experience we extended the Archive to a large group of members of the Pittsburgh community who had not known neither the Archive not the works of August Wilson before this.
Here’s the scenario that our crew arrived to, as they were presented with construction-wear to gear themselves up:
“Today we celebrate the beginning of this space and as a treat we have a preview of Act 1 of its first production, Recollections, as well as what the theater might look like.
You will step into an unfinished theater—a space under construction. Memories will serve as your time-traveling devices, moving the plot forward and allowing you to explore how the past shapes the present and future. As you move through the space, you will be invited to reflect on your own memories and find if they intersect with the collective.
But! This theater doesn’t work as others do (so it’s alright not to know about theater or even to know about it). Speculative Theater has some interesting principles which you can read in your Playbook, the most important one is that something will be asked of you.
Before we can proceed with the ribbon cutting ceremony, we want to invite you to write the second act of Recollections with us, as well as to add physical attributes of the theater in a diorama we prepared. There are three stations where to input your creations (script, diorama, computer). Once you’ve built for this inauguration, you’ll get a ticket so you can access Act 2 from any location in a week.”
Theater is time traveling
Theater is futuremaking
How do we feel about what we remember?
What if we built physical spaces using meaningful memories?
For years after August Wilson wrote his plays, people from many places wrote to him. Their letters carried stories of gratitude, connection, and transformation. Some spoke of belonging, of being seen for the first time. Others shared anecdotes of personal and collective validation. Families reconnected through his work; students connected to theater through the simplicity of his language; colleagues exchanged ideas; and assistants sent wishes for good weekends. When news of his cancer diagnosis became public, the letters shifted—still filled with hope, but also advice, pleas for more writing, and apologies for not finding the right words.
These letters are now preserved at the August Wilson Archive.
In our time spent in the Archive, we found ourselves moved by this outpouring of memory. The lives changed by his words, woven into these letters, felt like a cascade of collective remembrance; memories cascading around August Wilson’s words. Inspired by this, we wrote the first act of a play—Recollections—which draws from these memories.
At the same time, we dared to imagine something new: a new art form that fits in the Futures Design practice and which runs on memories. We call it Speculative Theater. Today we inaugurate together the ground where the theater will stand. A ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled, and a sneak peek of Recollections is on display alongside a diorama for the theater.
The idea of a theater under construction symbolizes growth, potential, and the ongoing process of memory-making. The unfinished nature of this theater reflects the incompleteness of memory and of the future.
On Speculative Theater
Somewhere in the exploration of futures, the concept of agency begins to unfold. We propose Speculative Theater as a new practice for crafting futures.
Speculative Theater serves as a form of future-making and a means of time travel because it draws on memories as its source element. For us in the present, memories are the closest thing we have to time travel. Theater recovers meaning from what is seen and remembered, our memories recover meaning from the past and carry it forward.
Speculative Theater not only imagines futures but also actively engages audiences in their creation. This art form has the potential to contribute to Futures Design by embracing its unfinished and interactive nature, and because it can introduce more embodied and emotionally connected approaches to think about the future.
Take a look at the Speculative Theater logo above. The arrows symbolize the dynamic stage directions that audiences can pursue during their experiences, and the same arrows echo how time travel works at The Time Travel Agency (from present to past to future to present).
The Speculative Theater’s brand and identity was commissioned to Vicky González, Karla Cantú, and Ricardo Acuña’s immense creative experience at VVORKROOM.
Speculative Theater is a strong concept sustained by its own principles and an actual playscript, and it also holds many other creations developed during this first instance. Here are the rest of the creations that make the Speculative Theater world so far:
All images below are galleries you can explore
1. Diorama
This diorama is the physical future space of our theater.
One difference between models and dioramas is that there is a story depicted on the diorama, something is going on and it is necessary for the story to be told– there needs to be a narrative that explains who the figures are and what they are doing. Memories inside photographs in the crew members’ phones are the guiding space to enter in order to be able to add to the diorama (and thus the story).
2. The Script– Recollections Act I
The playscript for Recollections Act I is memories.
Like in this 300-page playscript, memories are fragmented, in disarray.
Crew members were asked to access a clear memory of a person from a recent positive interaction; that was their anchor memory in order to start interacting with The Script, the vellum paper, and the typewriter.
3. Recollections Act II (infinite poem)
Arin Pantja & Shannon Wei’s infinite poem (or Recollections Act II) can be seen at https://www.speculativetheater.com/
Narrative websites tend to disappear as domains expire, productions end their run, and hosts go bankrupt. Recollections will be available only for one year starting on Nov 15th 2024.
4. Fence & Playscapes
A most playful (and most difficult) element: the Playscapes were snippets of the crew members’ work before it was put together into Act II. The fence with holes in it allowed sneak peeks into memories that others were working on, its interaction similar to fences in construction sites that allow passersby to follow what is being built on-site.
5. Inauguration: ribbon cutting ceremony
6. The ticket
A clever creation by the VVORKROOM team– after the ribbon cutting ceremony, everyone went home with a physical ticket that would be necessary to watch Act II online; once watched, they were to pass the ticket along to someone else and so on, until the production ran its course in one year.
When extended, the ticket gives no hints; when folded, the name of the play, Recollections, appears.
7. The Playbook and the Gameflow of the experience
The equivalent of a theater playbill. It can be read in two manners: crew members could choose to first find out about the experience, or to skip the context and go straight to instructions on what to build (and make sense by themselves).
8. The principles governing Speculative Theater
An entire broadcast at The Time Travel Transmissions will be dedicated to these principles simetime during Winter–Spring 2025.
We thank our producers at the August Wilson Archive for believing in our vision when it was only a mix of excitement and story. A special thank you to our featured artists–designers Arin Pantja and Shannon Wei for their talent and dedication; to VVORKROOM for their flexibility, guidance, and expertise; and to Sofia for the daydreaming. Special mention to John Balash for godfathering our Pittsburgh team and to Jason Swanson for leading us to John.
Joss dedicates this piece to Calcetines, her mighty cat, for surviving eye surgery during the making of this production. Also to Matt and to Kara.
The Time Travel Agency helps people reach futures of their own where they possess agency and feel happy to be alive, and this was one of them.