Motti LERNER

Motti LERNER (born 1949, Israel) teaches political playwriting to graduate students in the Theatre Department at Tel Aviv University, and dramatic writing at the Kibbutz College Drama School. He has been a freelance playwright and screenwriter for the major theaters and television channels in Israel since 1984. He was the 1994 recipient of his nation's most important literary award, the Prime Minister of Israel Award for Writers. His plays include "Kastner, a political/historical drama," which received the Best Play of the Year award in 1985 and was produced in Germany; and "Exile in Jerusalem" which was produced by the Royal National Theatre Studio in London, and featured Julie Harris in the title role at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts in 1994. His most recent works include "The Murder of Isaac" (1999), on the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and "The Institution," an ongoing TV series dealing with the life of therapists and their patients. Mr. Lerner's studies in mathematics and physics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem were interrupted by service in the Israel Defense Forces; following the resumption of his mathematics studies, he studied theatre and attended various theatre workshops in London and San Francisco. He is attending the IWP through support from the U.S.-Israel Educational Foundation.