About the Play:

Ada and the Engine is a full-length biographical drama by Lauren Gunderson. An inspirational tale of a trailblazing woman of science, Ada and the Engine explores the creativity and ingenuity that would ultimately lead to the digital revolution – starting in the unlikely place of 1830s England. A music-laced story of love, friendship, and the edgiest dreams of the future. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

Ada and the Engine follows the extraordinary life and work of Ada Byron Lovelace – whose magnificent mind imagined our digital world more than a century before the dawn of the computer age. As the British Industrial Revolution dawns, young Ada was more than your average high society girl – despite being the daughter of celebrated and notorious poet Lord Byron. Pushed by her cautious mother from artistic pursuits into scientific study and mathematical exploration, Ada soon discovered she had a knack for numbers… and that numbers, poetry, and music have more in common than her mother would like her to realize. Enter her friend and soul mate Charles Babbage, one of the greatest inventive minds of his age, whom Ada meets at a society party in her late teens. The much older Babbage captures Ada's imagination with his prototype for a "Thinking Machine" – a device that can take the human error out of calculations by performing them automatically, by machine. Ada envisions a whole new world where art and information converge – a world she might not live to see. The play has been described as "Jane Austen" meets "Steve Jobs" in this poignant pre-tech romance heralding the computer age.

Ada and the Engine premiered in 2016 at Central Works Theater in Berkeley, California. The play enjoyed widespread acceptance among leading regional theatres, and has become a popular choice for high school, college and community theatre productions.

Cast: 3 female, 3 male (doubling/flexible casting)

What people say:

"Gunderson finds plenty of intriguing matter in the… story she tells, zeroing in on the knowns and unknowns in the relationship between Ada and Charles Babbage… Gunderson's wit… [makes] the story pretty irresistible." — San Francisco Chronicle

"…wise and witty…[a] very smart and skillful Victorian parlor drama." — San Francisco Weekly

"Gunderson…has done a terrific job transforming Ada's story…The [script is] succinct and pithy, moving story and emotions along at the clip of an electronically infused calculation." — RepeatPerformances.org

"What Gunderson achieves in Ada and the Engine is quite remarkable. She manages to capture the cognitive energy and intellectual intimacy that can strengthen a friendship… Ada and the Engine is a rare and special artistic achievement: an intelligent play about intelligent historical people that has been crafted by intelligent theatre artists for an intelligent audience." — MyCulturalLandscape.com

About the Playwright:

Lauren M. Gunderson is an American playwright, screenwriter, and short story author originally from Atlanta, Georgia. She received her BA in English/Creative Writing at Emory University, and her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch, where she was also a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship.