ROBOTA
A creation story for the end of time.
A production by Headlong and the Cultural Centre
3 – 18 July 2026
Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, Oxford
In 1920, Karel Čapek imagined a world of A.I. and rebellion. Headlong reawakens his visionary play R.U.R. as ROBOTA – high-voltage theatre for the age of artificial intelligence.
In a distant tomorrow, the Rossum Corporation has done the impossible: created machines indistinguishable from humans. Built to serve. Programmed to obey.
But when these perfect workers begin to dream of freedom, the system starts to glitch. As the line between human and machine blurs, can humanity survive the revolution it set in motion?
Blending origin story with sci-fi, myth with machine, this is a bold, unsettling look at what it means to create life – and what happens when it turns on its maker.
Acclaimed theatre company Headlong, People, Places and Things and A Raisin in the Sun, opens the Cultural Programme’s theatre space with a bold new take on the play that gave us the word “robot.”
Created with Oxford University’s new Cultural Programme for the Humanities, ROBOTA collides theatre, Sci-Fi, and philosophy in a thrilling exploration of power and progress.
Artwork by studio DOUG