Interactive technologies play an increasingly prominent role in everyday life, moving from separate tools towards more explicit actors in processes together with humans. In performance arts, they have seen frequent use amongst dancers and musicians, but rarely in theater practices. Sonic Décor is a system to make décor objects interactive in sound through proximity-based sensing. The objects become technology actors, explicitly affecting narrative in theater processes. A study involving technology actor prototypes was conducted to find out how the practice of improvisational theater could change from their introduction. Insights indicate that the proposed technology actors present opportunities for quick, dynamic, distributed control over input into improvised narratives. However, important considerations are (1) the added complexity in narrative agency, (2) the balance between technology’s supportive and proactive behavior, and (3) the need for familiarization through early incorporation into the process.

Throughout the individual design process, there was a consistent flow between ideation through prototyping and making sense of design action through cross-checking with academic work in interactive theater. Additionally, extensive co-design-inspired stakeholder involvement resulted in a theater performance with the prototypes, which informed the process through making sense of design activities, and how to interpret these in a managed and well-informed manner.