“I built you because this is what I do. It’s my job. These are my tools, I used them, and honestly it’s not that hard – you’re basically a chatbot.”

Merril is one of Silicon Valley’s leading software engineers, but her life disintegrates when her younger sister Angie vanishes on her way home from college. A year later, when the police have long abandoned their search, Merril assembles all the digital material Angie has left behind and sets about building herself a digital simulation of her sister. The resultant ‘virtual Angie’ offers her some solace – until, that is, it starts to reveal new details about the real Angie’s disappearance…

San Francisco-based Lauren Gunderson is one of the world’s most produced playwrights; her I and You was a huge success at Hampstead in 2018. Author of over 20 plays, Lauren has also received the Lanford Wilson Award at the Dramatists Guild Awards and two Steinberg/ATCA New Play Awards.

Anthropology is the twelfth play that Anna Ledwich has directed for Hampstead, where her work has ranged from Labyrinth to the Olivier-nominated productions of Dry Powder and Four Minutes Twelve Seconds.