The delicate melodies of Ludwig van Beethoven permeates the four walls of a condo’s loft. One 25 foot wall contains numerous books, five shelves high. Another is full of personal papers, another copies of scripts. Also in the room–sitting, wearing his signature Superman belt buckle, concentrating through a pair of dark spectacles on a white desktop computer screen zoomed-in at 125%–is playwright, runner, and sagacious thirteen-year Parker substitute teacher David Alex. Typing quickly and quietly, he contemplates the conflict in his work.  

Beloved at both Parker and Latin, Alex has a vibrant personality. When he’s not teaching math or volunteering as a track and field coach, he has always saved time for his most beloved passions: playwriting and playgoing.  The man attends 20 to 30 plays every month.

“I was always writing,” Alex said. “When I was about seven years old, I would write puppet shows, and we’d invite the neighborhood to come over.  Then I was always writing short stories.”

After writing an unpublished novel in the late 1970s concerning international assassination conspiracies entitled “Protected Words,” Alex decided that it would be beneficial for him to work on his dialogue. “What better way to work on dialogue than a play?” Alex said. “It was just people talking.”

While working on plays, Alex has come to enjoy the process. “I’m not gonna change as a person, but like Eddy–the character in my play–I can change him,” Alex said, referencing his latest play, “Birth Rights.” “I enjoy doing that.”

Alex has long found a way to balance both teaching and writing. “A lot of athletes get their best grades during the season in which they’re participating in a sport,” Alex said. “It forces you to become disciplined, and they can’t keep putting things off. So I wrote.”

Although writing while teaching during his career was a little challenging, Alex is now retired from full-time teaching. While his passion for teaching frequently brings him back to the Parker community and other schools, he spends much of his free time seeing all those plays in the Chicago area and focusing on his own.

Chicago theater producer, director, and actor Maggie Speer is quite familiar with Alex’s work, having worked on a recently produced play of his entitled “Onto Infinity” and an older one entitled “Ends,” both of which were produced at the Bowen Park Theatre Company in Waukegan. “He is a great playwright to work with,” Speer, who has known Alex for about 20 years, said. “He is very open to suggestions from both the actors and the director. We have been friends ever since.”

Alex’s passion for teaching, and more specifically math, have fit into his work in theater. “He takes great delight in pointing out things about mathematics in the plays,” Speer said. “What’s a perfect number? Things like that.”

But Alex’s knowledge goes well beyond math. Speer said, “David is very well-educated in terms of music,” which he worked into his play “Eroica,” named after a Beethoven symphony. And then there’s literature.  Speer said, “‘Onto Infinity’ has a lot of the poetry of John Donne.”

Whether he’s writing or conversing with his theater friends, Alex often brings education into his everyday life. And his passion is apparent to various members of the student body. “He is very funny,” sophomore Audrey May said.  “No matter what class he subs, he is always knowledgeable about the subject.” May isn’t the only one with that opinion.

“I think he’s forgotten more math than I know,” upper school math teacher Victoria Lee said. “I think he’s wicked smart.”

Throughout her nine years at Parker, Lee has often interacted with Alex. “He always stops by to say hello,” Lee said. “I’ll tell him what we’re working on, and he’ll give me little tidbits.”

Lee once attended one of Alex’s plays. “I thought it was nice,” Lee said. “I thought it was engaging and fun.  I was sitting there thinking, ‘This is kind of cool,’” Lee said. “‘A friend of mine wrote this play.’”

Alex’s work has drawn in other members of the community too, people like sophomore Hans Burlin, who read for Ya’akov, a character in “Birth Rights.”  

“I went over to his apartment with another actor, and in a living space in the apartment we performed without actually moving our bodies,” Burlin said. “It was overall a pretty pleasant and unique experience for me.”

Recognizable for his Superman belt buckle, Alex is known for his humor and immense foundation of knowledge. “He’s a very passionate substitute,” sophomore Beatrice Turner said.  “He is passionate no matter what subject.  The first time I ever met him, he told our class to call him Superman.”

Superman jokes aside, every day Alex finds time to run, including in sub-zero temperature. His cut-off is twenty below zero. “I can’t miss a day of running,” Alex, whose typical three-mile route takes him through the Lincoln Park Zoo, said. “If it’s really cold, it’s just the keepers and I.”

He enjoys watching the animals, many of which he has incorporated in “Birth Rights,” including a monkey named Hank.

Alex’s routine is simple. Layering up in a black Under Armour shirt and a Latin sweatshirt for especially cold runs, Alex gets ready to combat the cold Chicago winters. He runs through the zoo waving to his animal friends, including the takins and a newborn camel named “Alexander Camelton.” After visiting the camels, he goes through the butterfly garden to run along the Nature Boardwalk until he runs by a fieldhouse. Going over the bridge next, Alex finds his way to the North Avenue Beach. After running by the lake, he heads past Latin and returns home.

At Latin Alex helps coach the track and field team. And in “Birth Rights” one of the two main characters is a runner just like Alex.

“There’s a little bit of every author in whatever they write,” Alex said. “Whether it’s a short story, a play, a novel, even when you write articles for a newspaper, there’s still a little bit of you in there. And maybe subtextual, maybe unconscious, but it’s in there.”