Vauhini is a writer. She’s used to being able to describe human experiences in ways that help readers make sense of their world. This is what she does. But she can’t write about her sister’s death – not in a way that captures what she’s really feeling anyway.

Sparked by a bit of guilty curiosity, she begins what feels like an illicit experiment with an artificial intelligence program to see what – if anything – she and the algorithm can learn about the very human experience of grief. Part false memory, part uncanny truth, what follows is a series of vignettes that feel at once poetic, bizarrely comical, and vulnerable, all held together by lots of rewrites and a quest for healing.

Adapted from Vauhini Vara’s acclaimed essay “Ghosts” (The Believer, This American Life, Best American Essays 2022), Ghost Variations is a wholly unique, theatrical meditation on how we grieve in a technological world.

This play was selected by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’s 2024 Colorado New Play Summit.