ArtsEmerson & The Museum Of Science Present UTOPIAN HOTLINE

What message would you send to the future? In 1977, NASA launched the twin Voyager spacecrafts, sending a collective message from humanity ingrained in vinyl into outer space. Both housing the Golden Record, an artifact intended to communicate who and what we are to anyone out there who might be listening, the spacecrafts have today traveled more than 13 billion miles.

Inspired by NASA's proverbial message in a bottle, now the farthest human-made object from Earth, Utopian Hotline is Theater Mitu's latest creation, a live performance that invites you, too, to speak your message to the distant future on a public telephone hotline. Just dial 1-646-694-8050 and respond to the prompt.

Those voicemails provide the source material for Utopian Hotline, part live theater, part telephone hotline, and part vinyl record. Running at the Museum of Science from May 1 through May 18, where it has been specifically adapted for the Charles Hayden Planetarium's 57-foot, 360-degree dome, the most recent iteration of Theater Mitu's experimental performance is co-presented with ArtsEmerson, in association with Octopus Theatricals. Under the immersive, full sky dome dedicated to astronomy and celestial objects, Theater Mitu is able to realize a theatrical experience that is, simultaneously, rigorously visual, aural, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. 

“Planetariums are gathering spaces for wonder—places where we sit together, enveloped by a journey that stretches our imagination and invites us to re-envision the world around us,” said Rubén Polendo, founding artistic director of Theater Mitu and director of Utopian Hotline. “It is this intrinsic quality of the Charles Hayden Planetarium that has transformed this piece. Utopian Hotline invites us to travel inside our collective imagination—to be immersed in the emotional landscapes we share.”

Drawing from real responses to the question “How do you imagine a more perfect future?,” Theater Mitu's Utopian Hotline brings audiences together under the magic of the Planetarium dome to experience curated audio landscapes via headphones and an elaborate installation of vintage-era telephones, tape recorders, and microphones. Four performers, dressed in gray jumpsuits, lead the ceremonial listening by singing and delivering monologues precisely timed to visuals on the dome through the microphones and telephone receivers, creating a sense of intimacy and distance as they interweave personal stories through a brief history of the Golden Record and scientific mysteries. Both a soundscape and immersive performance, the cumulative effect is an inspiring communal meditation among audience members, inviting them to reimagine together our shared future and leave their own offerings of hope. 

“Utopian Hotline is a centerpiece of our 2025 ‘Being Human' spotlight here at the Museum,” said James Monroe, creative director at the Museum of Science. “This year, we're exploring all aspects of our humanity and what's inside that connects us all. The arts are central to that. They offer a multichannel storytelling approach that meets people where they are and makes complex scientific topics accessible to our wider communities. Theater Mitu's Utopian Hotline personalizes questions about our shared humanity in a way that will especially resonate with visitors, bridging the arts and sciences and revealing the interconnections between the two.”

"Utopian Hotline is truly a collaboration for the senses—and we are honored to be co-presenting Theater Mitu's ground-breaking experimental performance with the Museum of Science," said ArtsEmerson Interim Executive Director Ronee Penoi. "We are excited for audiences to experience this moment of community—as Utopian Hotline invites us to reimagine our shared future.”

Utopian Hotline is a cornerstone of the Museum of Science's 2025 “Being Human” spotlight, a yearlong exploration of our interconnectivity and the ways we can all better the lives we live. This performance, record, and hotline is a collaboration produced by Theater Mitu in partnership with SETI Institute, Arizona State University's Interplanetary Initiative, and Brooklyn Independent Middle School, and is co-presented at the Museum of Science by the Museum's Center for Space Sciences and ArtsEmerson, in association with Octopus Theatricals.