We return prolific playwright Lauren Gunderson (2019’s Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley) to our Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage for the regional premiere of her new historical romance of Byronesque poetry and scientific invention: Ada and the Engine.
The first production on the indoor Tabor Stage of our 14th performance season, Ada and the Engine, directed by Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary, runs November 11-21 and is generously sponsored by The Sims Family Charitable Trust.
Set between 1835-1852 (and beyond), Ada and the Engine brings to the stage historical figures Ada Byron Lovelace, her parents Lord Byron and Annabella Byron, her husband Lord Lovelace, and the esteemed inventor Charles Babbage. What is unknown of their actual dialogue and relationships is here imagined by Gunderson into a play of tremendous theatricality, time travel, dance, music, and possibility. At the center of the narrative is the brilliant young woman who invented computer programming.
In Victorian London, the young mathematician Ada Byron embodies a confluence of poetry, science, music, and a musical vision for future generations that she can’t quite articulate. Yet. The poetry is that of her departed father: Lord Byron.
To ensure Ada has no relationship to her irresponsible father or his scandalous writing, her mother focuses Ada’s studies strictly on “maths” and her future strictly on marriage to Lord Lovelace. The Byron name carries damage and ill repute. But Ada’s heart will not be denied. Nor will her mind.
The precocious youngster eyes the creative potential of the clanking Difference Machine and Analytic Engine designed by scholar and much-older friend Charles Babbage. While he may never see his invention of the massive computer come to life, Ada senses a musicality in the machine that could change the world. But for a woman in this time, will her fantastical ideas and curious relationship with Babbage overwhelm her own mortality?
In Gunderson’s play, it may take an awakening in Ada’s unconscious world — and a song with an unlikely familial spirit.
McCleary directs a cast that introduces actor/dancer Rachel Cendrick as Ada, and features TSC company members Jabril Bey as Charles Babbage, Lauren Gunn (TSC’s Romeo and Juliet, Henry VI, Miss Bennet) as Anabella Byron and Mary Sommerville, and Nicolas Dureaux Picou (TSC’s Romeo and Juliet, Henry VI, As You Like It, Macbeth) as Lord Lovelace and Lord Byron.
The production’s original music is composed and played by The Kilbanes.
“We have had our eye on Lauren Gunderson’s new play for over a year,” says McCleary. “I appreciate her scholarship, which she insists on being embraced by the modern. That occurs in most of her writing, which I admire. Here, she gives us intriguing, powerful women, who must have been terribly creative to get their voices heard between 1835 to 1852 in London. And I confess that I had no idea Ada Byron Lovelace was the mother of binary code invention. But more than this, it is her courage and unique intellectual capacity to marry math/science to poetry/music that is electric. On stage, we get to explore history with modern invention, dance, and visual projections that we imagine bursting forth from Ada’s mind as she envisions the future (our present day) and her heart as she navigates a social world that does not permit her total independence.
“This is a show unlike anything else our audiences have seen on the Tabor Stage – wildly theatrical with a lot of fun production elements.”
The production design team includes Allison White (costume designer), Jeremy Allen Fisher (scenic/lighting designer), Melanie Mulder (properties designer), Burkett Horrigan (stage manager), Nathan Greene (sound and video programmer), P.J. Townsend (assistant stage manager), and James Baker (assistant technical director).
Ada and the Engine is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.
Artist and Production Bios
Rachel Cendrick (Ada) TSC: Romeo and Juliet (Juliet). Montana Shakespeare in the Parks: Cymbeline (Queen/Cadwal), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Titania/Hippolyta). Houston Shakespeare Festival: As You Like It (Phebe), Julius Caesar (Decius). Studio 208: Titus Andronicus (Tamora), As You Like It (Celia). Rachel holds a B.F.A. from Baylor University and an M.F.A. from The University of Houston Professional Actor Training Program.
Jeremy Allen Fisher (Production Manager/Lighting and Scenic Designer) TSC: Macbeth, As You Like It, Waiting for Godot, Much Ado About Nothing, To Kill a Mockingbird, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Richard III, The Taming of the Shrew, Unto the Breach, It’s a Wonderful Life, Hamlet. A graduate of Oklahoma City University, Jeremy has worked with Theatre Memphis, Opera Memphis, Ballet Memphis, Broad Avenue Arts, Seattle Opera, and Santa Fe Opera. Some of his other credits include lighting Memphis’ Broad Avenue Water Tower, Wiseacre’s new Taproom, and several works at Saint Jude’s Research Hospital. In 2017, he received the TAC Individual Artist Award; and between 2012-2017 he earned 11 Ostrander Award nominations with four wins for his lighting designs.
Lauren Gunderson (Playwright) TSC: Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. Lauren has been one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015, topping the list twice, including in 2019/20. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the winner of the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and John Gassner Award for Playwriting, and a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Residency with Marin Theatre Company. She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her newest play The Catastrophist, about her husband virologist Nathan Wolfe, premiered digitally in January 2021. She co-authored the Miss Bennet plays with Margot Melcon, and her audioplay The Half-Life of Marie Curie is available on Audible.com. Her work is published at Playscripts (I and You, Exit Pursued by a Bear, The Taming, and Toil and Trouble), Dramatists Play Service (The Revolutionists, The Book of Will, Silent Sky, Bauer, Natural Shocks, The Wickhams, and Miss Bennet), and Samuel French (Emilie). Her picture book Dr. Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon is available from Two Lions/Amazon. She currently is developing musicals with Ari Afsar, Dave Stewart and Joss Stone, and Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk. LaurenGunderson.com
Lauren Gunn (Lady Anabella Byron/Mary Sommerville) TSC: Henry VI: Wars of the Roses, Romeo and Juliet, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. Southern Arena Theatre: Boeing Boeing, I Hate Hamlet. New Stage Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Crimes of the Heart, A Christmas Carol, Cat in the Hat. Fish Tale Group Theatre: Voice of Freedom Summer. Unframed: Constellations, Gruesome Playground Injuries. Lauren is new to Memphis and is originally from Jackson, MS. Education: University of Southern Mississippi (M.F.A. in Acting).
Burkett Horrigan (Production Stage Manager) TSC: Henry VI: Wars of the Roses, Romeo and Juliet. Credits: Assistant Stage Manager for Ohio Light Opera’s summer season, including Production Stage Manager for Pirates of Penzance; Production Stage Manager for Bergen Performing Arts Center productions of Les Miserables, West Side Story, and Beauty and the Beast; Production Assistant for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids events. Burkett recently received her B.F.A. in Theatre from Montclair State University, with concentrations in Stage Management and Lighting Design.
The Kilbanes (Original Music Composers/Musicians) Kate Kilbane and Dan Moses are a married songwriting and performing duo performing in rock clubs all over the U.S. Their works for theatre include WP Theater, American Conservatory Theater, Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival, Z Space SF, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, and Berkeley Rep. They recently received the Next Generation Commission from Theater Latte Da in Minneapolis. kilbanes.com
Dan McCleary (Director), a native of Memphis, has created, directed, and acted in half of TSC’s productions, including the inaugural production of As You Like It, also Julius Caesar, Waiting for Godot, The Glass Menagerie, The Taming of the Shrew, Richard III, To Kill a Mockingbird, Much Ado About Nothing, Ernest Hemingway in Key West, Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia Gothic, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, The Tempest, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the all-female Julius Caesar, Othello, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), Themes from a Midsummer Night with IRIS Orchestra, and last season’s Classical Creations in Quarantine and Shakespeare’s Election of Coriolanus. Dan acted in and directed over 30 productions at Shakespeare & Company as Associate Artistic Director, including his acclaimed production of The Servant of Two Masters, his own adaptation of Anaïs Nin’s Henry and June, as well as Vita & Virginia (Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf), My Own Stranger (Anne Sexton), and The Fiery Rain (Edith Wharton/Henry James/Morton Fullerton). Other regional directing credits of Shakespeare and new work: Seattle Shakespeare, Orlando Shakespeare, and Georgia Shakespeare. Dan is a published poet, and the creator/director/actor of plays Speak What We Feel: Shakespeare’s Radical Response to a Radical Time, Unto the Breach, Quintessence: Shakespeare in Performance, and Classical Creations in Quarantine. Memphis Magazine named him among the “Who’s Who in Memphis” for five years (including 2020). Dan presented his TEDx Talk “Shakespeare in Kindergarten, or Let Fall Rome” in Memphis last year, and the Germantown Arts Alliance honored him with its 2009 Distinguished Arts and Humanities Medal for Performing Arts. He holds a B.A. in Advertising and Journalism from Temple University.
Melanie Mulder (Props Designer) TSC: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Other props/scenic design credits include Hattiloo Theatre’s A Song for Coretta, In the Heights, and Once on this Island; Playhouse on the Square’s The Miraculous and the Mundane; St. Mary’s Episcopal School’s White Christmas and Addams Family. Melanie has served as Props Master on productions for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Seaside Music Theatre (FL), Vineyard Theatre, Pearl Theatre, the New School for Drama and the Signature Theatre (NYC), as well as Williamstown Theatre Festival (MA), Lake George Opera (NY), and Northern Stage (VA).
Nicolas Dureaux Picou (Lord Lovelace/Lord Byron) TSC: Henry VI: Wars of the Roses, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, As You Like It, Macbeth, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Comedy of Errors, Henry V. Other favorite productions include M. Butterfly, The Physicists, Private Eyes. Nic holds a B.F.A. in Theatre Performance from the University of Memphis.
P.J. Townsend (Assistant Stage Manager) Credits: Stage Manager/Props Master for Sterling Renaissance Festival; Stage Manager for Blues for an Alabama Sky; Assistant Stage Manager for Cabaret, The Seagull, and Next to Normal. P.J. is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi, with a B.A. in Theater and an emphasis in technical theatre and management.
Allison White (Costume Designer/Wardrobe) TSC: Henry VI: Wars of the Roses, Romeo and Juliet. Design credits: University of Florida: Pippin, Between Riverside and Crazy, The Day is Long to End; Cape Fear Regional Theatre: Caroline, Or Change; Sarasota Youth Opera: The Secret World of Og; Theatre Raleigh: Smokey Joe’s Café, The Wolf, All My Sons, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Carousel. Allison also has worked at several regional opera companies as a member of their costume production staff.
Health Safety Information for the Tabor Stage
All TSC personnel are fully-vaccinated against COVID-19.
TSC follows all Shelby County Health Department directives and recommendations as they are announced: Actors will remain at mandatory physical distance from patrons at all times. All patrons aged 2+ must wear a facial mask at all times, regardless of vaccination status, inside TSC’s facility; and must present a valid proof of receipt of at least one COVID-19 vaccination dose, or if patrons are aged 12+ and unvaccinated, must present valid proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken at least 72 hours prior.
Box Office Information
Purchase tickets now and receive more information by calling our Box Office at (901) 759-0604 or purchase online here.
TSC’s Tabor Stage is located at 7950 Trinity Road, Memphis, TN 38018-6297.
Tiered seating tickets range from $20-$40. The Preview performance on November 11 is $20. There are two Free Will Kids’ Nights (November 11 and 18) when up to two children 17 years and younger may attend for free when accompanied by at least one, full-price-paying Adult Guardian, while seats last. Free Will tickets must be purchased in-person at the Box Office upon arrival at the performance.
Tiered seating tickets for Seniors (age 62+) range from $20-$35.
All tickets for Students (age +/-22, with identification) are $20.
No refunds/exchanges. House opens 30 minutes prior to curtain. Credit Card charges require a $1 per-ticket fee. Cast/schedule subject to change with notice. Free parking and covered drop-off area.
Performance Schedule for Ada and the Engine
Thursday, November 11: 7:30 pm Preview performance/Kids FREE
Friday, November 12: 7:30 pm Opening (no reception)
Saturday, November 13: 3:00 pm Matinee
Saturday, November 13: 7:30 pm Performance
Thursday, November 18: 7:30 pm Performance/Kids FREE
Friday, November 19: 7:30 pm Performance
Saturday, November 20: 7:30 pm Performance
Sunday, November 21: 3:00 pm Closing
Season 14 Sponsors and Partners
TSC’s generous sponsors of its season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include FedEx, International Paper, the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Midwest, ArtsMemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, Independent Bank, Evans|Petree, P.C., First Horizon Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, AutoZone, Campbell Clinic, the family of Pat and Ernest Kelly, The Sims Family Charitable Trust, Nancy R. Copp, the Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund, the family of Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, Anne and Michael Keeney, Irene and Fred Smith, and the Memphis City Council. TSC’s season is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee.
TSC’s programming and outreach partners include University of Memphis’ Department of Theatre & Dance, Shelby County Schools, Collierville Municipal School District, Memphis Juvenile Justice System, the Memphis V.A. Hospital, Cities of Bartlett/Collierville/Germantown/Lakeland/Memphis, and the Benjamin Hooks Public Library Friends.
About Tennessee Shakespeare Company:
Tennessee Shakespeare Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre and education organization in Memphis dedicated to live, diverse performances of William Shakespeare’s plays, as well as works of social significance by classical, Southern, and modern writers/composers; and to providing innovative educational and training programming in-person and online.
Founded in 2008 by Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary, Tennessee Shakespeare Company is Memphis’ first and only professional, classical theatre. In 2017, TSC purchased its first performing arts facility, which is being renovated into the state’s only permanent home for professional, year-round Shakespeare performance, education, and training. The company is engaged in its Brave New World capital campaign with a goal of $9.2 million, of which nearly one-third has been raised.
TSC has engaged its community with 58 site-specific plays and events for over 52,000 patrons. Its ground-breaking Education Program has reached 120 schools across nine states, totaling over 275,000 student interactions. The Program has achieved a high regional and national profile, partners annually with most local school systems, and this year is a recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts/Arts Midwest’s Shakespeare in American Communities grants: one for The Romeo and Juliet Project in underserved local schools, and the other for expanded residencies with local incarcerated youth. TSC is one of just a handful of U.S. theatres to be awarded this grant for the third consecutive year.
