THE MARK OF PRIMENESS, by Alex Lewin

About the Play

Marsha, a mathematician who's devoted her career to solving an age-old math problem, remains stymied - until a brilliant student comes into her life and claims to have found the answer. But when Marsha's desperation gets the better of her, she pushes the ethical boundaries dangerously far.

About the Playwright

Raised in New Jersey and California, Alex Lewin always scored much higher on math exams than on English exams. So he decided, of course, to become a writer. Alex majored in Creative Writing & Professional Writing, with a minor in Film & Media Studies, at Carnegie Mellon University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Alex is currently an MFA candidate in Playwriting in the University of California, San Diego's Theatre Program. He is the recipient of a commission from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation/Ensemble Studio Theatre (THE MARK OF PRIMENESS) and has held a residency at EST's Lexington Center for the Arts. His play, THE END OF THE PARTY, has been developed at the New Group. Other plays have been developed at the Harbor Theatre and Emerging Artists Theatre, both in New York City. Alex was recently a visiting fellow at the 2006 O'Neill National Playwrights Conference.

Alex's one-act play, WATER STREET, was produced last April in UC San Diego's Baldwin New Play Festival. In July, it will receive a reading at the Emigrant Theater in Minneapolis. His other one-acts have been produced five times in the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival in New York City. Alex's other full-length plays include UNACCOUNTED FOR; THE DARK REEL; and THE CLOCK OF THE YEARS, among others.

Alex has also written several screenplays, one of which, WEEDS, won the Scenario Magazine/Writers Guild of America Student Screenplay Competition when Alex was an undergraduate. The script was published in the Winter, 1998 issue of Scenario. He has also been a quarter-finalist for the Nicholl Fellowship.

Alex is a former staff writer for Premiere magazine. He is currently at work on his first comedy.