Man Vs. Artificial Intelligence Fuels Armory's Production of The Machine

The U.S. premiere of British playwright Matt Charman’s new play The Machine takes over Park Avenue Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall Sept. 4-18. The play, a co-commission of Park Avenue Armory, Donmar Warehouse, and the Manchester International Festival, depicts the headline-grabbing 1997 New York chess tournament between Grandmaster Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue, a super-computer developed by technology giant IBM.

An epic battle between a human genius and a state-of-the-art machine, The Machine will be staged the Armory’s 55,000-square-foot drill hall as a sports event complete with a 4-sided arena; a giant, electronic scoreboard; and video cameras capturing and broadcasting the action on a Jumbotron.

In 1997, Garry Kasparov, the world’s greatest chess player, arrived in New York City for the biggest match of his life. His opponent wasn’t a fellow Grandmaster, but a faceless super-computer, Deep Blue, built by tech-giant IBM and masterminded by Dr. Feng-Hsiung Hsu.

An international celebrity and the undisputed master of his art, Kasparov came to America for freedom and glory. What he didn't expect to confront was the lifelong dedication of another young genius, Deep Blue’s wunderkind inventor Doctor Hsu. What followed was a collision of human brilliance, foibles, greed and artificial intelligence. Under the direction of the Donmar Warehouse Artistic Director Josie Rourke, the cast features Hadley Fraser as Garry Kasparov, Francesca Annis as Garry’s mother, Clara, and Kenneth Lee as Dr. Hsu.

The Machine is the first play Park Avenue Armory has co-commissioned for the Wade Thompson Drill Hall as part of the Armory’s 2013 season, which offers a series of commissions, co-commissions, and presentations that blur the distinctions between genres and break new ground for artists and audiences alike within the unconventional platforms of the Armory’s soaring drill hall. The Armory seeks to enable artists to create and audiences to experience immersive and adventurous work that cannot be done elsewhere in New York.

The season also includes Massive Attack V Adam Curtis (Sept. 28-Oct. 4), a new kind of imaginative experience conceived by Adam Curtis and Robert Del Naja, mixing music, film, and politics performed by Massive Attack and special guests; a recital series presented in the Armory’s renovated Board of Officers Room, featuring baritone Christian Gerhaher, violinist Vilde Frang, and pianist Anton Batagov (Sept. 29-Oct. 27); and Robert Wilson’s powerful new staging of The Life and Death of Marina Abramović (Dec.12-21). The season was launched in March with OKTOPHONIE, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s epic electronic masterpiece, ritualized in a lunar environment created by visual artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, followed by WS, a monumental installation by Paul McCarthy.

Tickets and information: 212-933-5812; www.armoryonpark.org.