UPDATE: This production has been cancelled due to recent advances with the COVID-19 Outbreak. Please see “Important Update About Pipeline” for more information.

Join us Saturday, April 25 at 7pm for a  pre-show Playreading Event with the Catalyze Playwriting Group.

Catalyze Playwright Group performs a reading of three new short plays about the potential for artificial intelligence to grant or misinterpret our wishes. The plays were inspired by Ada Lovelace for CST’s run of Ada and the Engine. Featuring: 

• “Edisons” by Austin Hendricks
• “Deaths of Despair” by Anna Waldman-Brown
• “Okay, Cupid” by Zach Barryte and Drachel Bowens-Rubin

The Catalyze Playwriting Group Description: 

Catalyze is a group of science, speculative, and slipstream playwrights based out of Central Square Theater.  The Catalyze Playwriting Group is an offshoot of Catalyst Collaborative@MIT (CC@MIT), a collaboration between Central Square Theater and MIT. The Catalyze Playwriting Group writes, workshops, and performs new works of science theatre.

UPDATE: This production has been cancelled due to recent advances with the COVID-19 Outbreak. Please see “Important Update About Pipeline” for more information.

Join us Friday, April 24 join us for a post-show conversation with Kim Smith.

Artist and CEO of Learning Beautiful, Kim Smith, discusses the themes of computational thinking, innovation, and the intersection of art and technology presented in Ada and the Engine.  

Kim Smith is an artist and designer based in Boston, MA. She is the co-founder and CEO of Learning Beautiful, a company creating timeless, Montessori-inspired toys for young children to learn the basics of computer science, without using computers. Learning Beautiful breaks down the foundational and abstract ideas of computational thinking into simple building blocks so that young children can playfully learn about the binary number system, representation, Boolean logic, and algorithms.

In 2017, Kim received a Master of Science degree from the MIT Media Lab, where she was a Learning Fellow with the Learning Innovation Fellowship. She has presented at the LEGO Foundation, Early Futures, the American Montessori Society, and the White House.

She holds an MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and completed her BFA in Fine Art and Art History from Oregon State University. She was recently selected as a recipient for the Boston Center for the Arts Visual Artist Residency for 2019. From 2007- 2009, she served in the US Peace Corps in rural Zambia as an educator where she led the construction and development of the area’s first preschool. 

UPDATE: This production has been cancelled due to recent advances with the COVID-19 Outbreak. Please see “Important Update About Pipeline” for more information.

Join us on Thursday, April 23 for a post-show talkback with the cast and crew of Ada and the Engine!

UPDATE: This production has been cancelled due to recent advances with the COVID-19 Outbreak. Please see “Important Update About Pipeline” for more information.

Join us on Wednesday, April 22 for a post-show conversation with Harry Lewis. 

Distinguished mathematician, computer scientist, and former Dean of Harvard College, Harry Lewis leads a conversation about the play.

Harry Lewis is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Among his books are Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion (with Hal Abelson and Ken Ledeen), and the 2019 textbook Essential Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science (with Rachel Zax). To appear in 2020 is his edited collection of classic computer science papers, Ideas that Created the Future (MIT Press). His books about higher education include Excellence Without a Soul: Does Liberal Education Have a Future?, and What is College For? (with Ellen Condliffe Lagemann).

Lewis began his career in computer science working in computer graphics as an undergraduate student of Ivan Sutherland, and served at NIH as a commissioned officer in the US Public Health Service before returning to Harvard for his PhD. He started teaching computer science at Harvard in 1974, and his students have included both Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. For eight years he served as Dean of Harvard College, and for half a year as interim Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

UPDATE: This production has been cancelled due to recent advances with the COVID-19 Outbreak. Please see “Important Update About Ada and the Engine” for more information.

Join us on Sunday, April 19 for a post-show conversation hosted by IIT AGNE. 

Indian Institutes of Technology Association of Greater New England (IIT AGNE) is an organization dedicated to engaging in and supporting charitable educational and scientific research activities. It was incorporated by a group of engineering and technical professionals that were initially drawn together due to their common educational foundation from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and residing in the Greater New England area. IIT AGNE is a membership organization, open to any person who supports its goals. IIT AGNE is returning to Central Square Theater for a third year, hosting post-show panels to discuss topics relevant to the play and to our time.