“Glitch” Finds Humanity in the Code
What if artificial intelligence could introduce you to your child years before they were born? That’s the wild, slightly terrifying, and oddly tender question at the heart of Glitch, a new play by Kip Koenig that manages to juggle science fiction, romance, and existential comedy without ever dropping its sense of wonder.
Amy, played with sharp humor and ache by Danielle Augustine, visits a futuristic lab to test a program that can conjure a holographic version of her potential child. The simulation is based on her DNA combined with that of her current boyfriend—the man she suspects might be the one—except for his dream of five kids to her “maybe one.” What begins as a curiosity trip turns personal when the spirit of her future daughter starts speaking through a malfunction in the system.
Koenig’s premise could easily have drifted into gimmickry, but he keeps the focus on the messy, recognizable corners of human behavior. It’s a play about technology, sure, but even more about that familiar tug-of-war between control and fate. There’s something both eerie and moving in watching a woman face her future child, not as metaphor but as data made flesh.
The direction by Mark Koenig makes clever use of a tricky Off-Off-Broadway space, turning limitations into part of the story’s design. The pace hums along with precision, and there’s genuine chemistry among the cast. Sunny Makwana’s Wyatt, the scientist behind the experiment, carries an almost accidental arrogance that feels authentic to the dreamers who build things they can’t quite control. His assistant Wendy, played by Jacquie Bonnet, brings needed bursts of comic irreverence—like the only person in the room aware they’re standing in a potential Black Mirror episode.
But it’s Amilia Shaw, voicing Aurora, the disembodied AI who runs the experiment, who quietly steals the show. Her voice hovers between care and calculation, so controlled it feels like empathy run through an algorithm. And when Amy finally meets her holographic daughter, played with an eerie luminosity by Hannah Doherty, the play lands on something profound: that the future, even when simulated, still finds a way to feel heartbreakingly real.
As a new parent, I found Glitch crawling under my skin in the best way. The questions it raises about creation, choice, and the quiet math of love lingered long after the applause. It’s a play that imagines the future but speaks directly to right now, where our phones already know our faces, and our hearts sometimes feel one software update away from being replaced.
If Glitch suggests that technology can let us peek into what’s coming, it also reminds us of the old truth: nothing man-made can outdo the raw, unpredictable glitch that is being human.