Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore; directed by Scott Edmiston, scenic design by Janie E. Howland, lighting design by Karen Perlow, costume design by Chloe Moore, sound design by Aubrey Dube, projections design by SeifAllah Salotto-Cristobal, props design by Julia Wonkka, dialect coach Danny Bryck, stage manager Charles Waite Clay. Presented by Central Square Theater at 450 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, MA, through April 26, 2026.

By Julie-Anne Whitney

Many of us have heard the name Alan Turing, but few know much more about him than what he is most known for: breaking the Nazi Enigma code, which helped bring an end to WWII. Known as the father of computer science, Alan Turing was a pioneering English mathematician and cryptographer. In 1936, at just 24 years old, he developed the Universal Turing Machine, which would later lead to the creation of the first modern computer. During the Second World War, he worked as a codebreaker for the British government, creating a machine that could decode the German military’s encrypted transmissions, which likely saved millions of lives. In 1950, he published a paper that asked, “Can machines think?” which became the foundation for artificial intelligence.