Annie Dorsen: Yesterday Tomorrow

Copresented with Walker Art Center
July 21–23, 8 pm
McGuire Theater

UPDATE: Annie Dorsen, Yesterday Tomorrow performances (January 27-29) have been rescheduled to July 21–23. If you have questions regarding the reschedule, please email orders@walkerart.org.

“Perhaps the most experimental jukebox musical ever conceived.” —Bomb Magazine 

“A haunting and strangely beautiful musical theater piece that is as simple in its emotional appeal as it is complex in its conception and execution.” —The New York Times

Algorithmic theater inventor Annie Dorsen, winner of a 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Award, remounts a prescient 2016 work suited to our technologically-drenched and environmentally/politically anxious times, a work that celebrates the potential transcendence of living in the moment. Beginning with the Beatles’ “Yesterday” and ending with the song “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie, Dorsen’s special algorithms creates new scores in real time each night for three remarkable vocalists, deconstructing and reassembling these beloved pop songs. A meditation on the relationship between humanity, computers, and creativity with a Zen-like embrace of the present at its core, the work’s use of chance and artificial intelligence “unexpectedly creates a funny, joyous, and twisting journey...surprisingly, for such an intellectual exercise, human pleasure is the overwhelming result” (Exuent).     

Please note: Mask-wearing is mandatory for all attendees. If you have questions or require additional assistance, please email orders@walkerart.org or call 612-375-7600. Learn more about Walker Art Center’s COVID-19 Guidelines here.