Ada and the Engine
Romantic Historical Drama
2 acts, 100 minutes
2 f, 2 m
Find the script at New Play Exchange >
Original Song from The Kilbanes “Ada’s Vision” here.
Ada Lovelace is our main character. Fiery, brilliant woman who wrote the first computer program and imagined that computers would make music… in 1830. She is the daughter of Lord Byron (yes THAT Lord Byron). At 17 she befriends the inestimable Charles Babbage and together they would imagine the future - a world where a thinking engine could not only do complicated calculations, but talk to itself, predict outcomes, and even make music.
Alas Babbage’s machine was never built. But the program Ada wrote for it remains.
She died at 36. So too did her father, whose lyrical poems she can’t seem to get out of her head even though they never met.
Ada dreamt of the future, of talking to the future through machines and engines. Today she almost is.
Top photo: Jim Norrena
SF Weekly