Song of Extinction

Drama / Characters: 5m, 1f 2009 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award - American Theater Critics Association 2008 Ted Schmitt Award for the world premiere of an Outstanding New Play - Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle 2008 Production of the Year - The LA Weekly Awards - Los Angeles, CA Max, a musically gifted high school student, is falling off the edge of the world - and his biology teacher is the only one who's noticed. A play about the science of life and loss, the relationships between fathers and sons, Cambodian fields, Bolivian rainforests and redemption. Max Forrestal is going to fail Biology if he doesn't complete a 20-page paper on extinction by 2pm on Tuesday - but his mother, Lily, is dying of cancer, and school is the last thing on his mind. His father, Ellery, a biologist obsessed with saving a rare Bolivian insect, is incapable of dealing with his wife's impending death, or his son's distress. Max's biology teacher, Khim Phan, tries to figure out why Max is failing the class. Helping Max, however, pushes Khim into a magical journey of his own - from the Cambodian fields of his youth into the undiscovered country beyond. "Critic's Choice...artfully balances its theme of mortality between the intimate and the macroscopic. ..explores inner psychological states with remarkable eloquence and clarity..." -Phillip Brandeis, Los Angeles Times. "The interplay of the three [views on extinction] in Lewis' smart and honest script is one small push away from collective transcendence" -Amy Nicholson, LA Weekly