The Difference Engine

The Theatre of a Twoheaded Calf presents The Difference Engine, a new play by Samantha Hunt. In 1823, Charles Babbage invented the Difference Engine, commonly referred to now as the predecessor to the modern computer. His achievement went unacknowledged in his lifetime and he died a mere footnote, forgotten or scorned by most everybody. His protege, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, was a precocious young mathematician who was writing computer code more than a century before a computer. Playwright and poet Samantha Hunt has written an exciting open-ended account of these two lesser (though no less interesting) historical figures.