DATA included on ArtsAtl’s Best of 2021 Theatre list
“In May, the Alliance’s website streamed Matthew Libby’s dystopian drama DATA, which won the 2021 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition. Directed by Alliance artistic director Susan Booth and shot at the Creative Media Industries Institute at Georgia State University, DATA isn’t your typical film — the five actors were never actually side by side. They delivered their lines in front of a green screen, with background images added later. Intentionally, it all looks artificial, like a sterile lab experiment.
Libby’s intricate script and the geeky awkwardness of the cast makes everything a feedback loop on itself, where a Silicon Valley tech firm gets a government contract to develop democracy-ending software. What could possibly go wrong? DATA is as much about ethics and philosophy as sci-fi and acute observations on human nature. Add the weirdness of the production, and it made for a memorable, oddly compelling show.”