Adam is the breakout feature film from director Max Mayer, who has directed more than 50 new plays Off-Broadway and around the country, and has also directed for some of television’s most prestigious shows, including “Alias” and “The West Wing.” His inspiration for ADAM came, rather appropriately, out of the blue. One day, Mayer was listening to the radio when he was suddenly riveted by a story about a man living with Asperger’s Syndrome, an increasingly common form of high-functioning autism that is hallmarked by an inability to read what other people are thinking and feeling. Those with Asperger’s Syndrome can be highly intelligent, even off-the-charts brilliant, but are often socially cut-off because they perceive ordinary human behavior as strange, irrational and even wildly incomprehensible. They are, essentially, “mindblind.”

It struck Mayer that we all get a dizzying glimpse at that kind of confusion in romantic relationships – when we each become bumbling amateur detectives trying to figure out this total stranger that makes our heart beat faster -- and he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like for a person who has Asperger’s Syndrome to carry on a romance with someone who doesn’t. The concept seemed rife not only with relatable mishaps but a vivid new way to view the pinnacle of human emotions -- from the fresh perspective of someone who sees emotion differently.

“When I heard that man on the radio talking about Asperger’s Syndrome, I realized that not only was he describing his own very moving journey but also something about the general human condition,” says Mayer. “We are all trapped in our heads – and can only make guesses about what another person’s experience is of the world, even those we love. That’s what inspired me to begin ADAM. As I started writing, I realized that Adam’s relationship to Beth is an extreme version of a very common dilemma we all face in life: the urge for an intimate connection to that which is necessarily strange – another person with their own view of the world.”

A long-time New Yorker, Mayer wrote ADAM as a classic Manhattan boy-meets-girl-in-a-building romance – but with a unique twist. After all, this boy and this girl have more than just the usual circumstantial obstacles standing between them; they have the mystery of the human brain itself.

To create Adam as a fully-fledged character, Mayer began by looking into what little is known today about Asperger’s Syndrome. Like Adam, those with Asperger’s have also been noted as being shockingly straight-forward truth-tellers and entirely unconcerned with social conventions. It is thought that the Syndrome has probably existed for most of human history. Indeed, it has been speculated that a number of famously “hard to understand” scientists, writers, artists and other geniuses may have had the Syndrome, including Albert Einstein, Amadeus Mozart, Isaac Newton and James Joyce, among others.

While Asperger’s Syndrome can be isolating and debilitating for some, many people who live with it also excel in achievements, especially in our increasingly high-tech world. Today, there is now a growing, empowered community of people with Asperger’s Syndrome, who refer to themselves as “Aspies.”

“Aspies don’t talk about it in terms of a handicap, they just call the rest of us ‘neurotypicals,’” points out Mayer. “When I went to some Asperger’s meetings, I saw a wide spectrum of people but basically they all share the same trait of not being able to pick up on emotions from facial expressions or instincts. That part of the world is more mysterious to them. Yet, the Syndrome is also associated with a number of verifiable geniuses.”

Mayer sketched Adam as someone at the upper end of the spectrum – highly intelligent, capable of leading his own offbeat, independent life yet isolated from romance because he’s never known how to reach out of his inner world – that is, until he is forced into it by his new neighbor Beth’s interest in him. “Adam functions well and has a lot of really cool interests, like astronomy and theatre, but he’s essentially been cut off from the outside world. He’s doing OK but realizes it isn’t the way to be when he bumps into Beth,” explains Mayer.

As a mysterious young man who retains a disarming, tell-it-like-it-is innocence, Adam joins a short list of memorable autistic characters in movies, including Dustin Hoffman in RAIN MAN and Peter Sellers in BEING THERE. But Adam is also quite different because he is a character who has been placed in the midst of a world where people with neurological differences are almost never seen, almost forbidden – that of the romantic comedy – as he does what no one would ever expect him to do: fall for a seemingly unattainable girl in spite of all the mind-boggling obstacles.

From the minute he began reading the script, Dancy was riveted by Adam. “Right from the start, Adam is a mystery,” he muses. “There’s something very human about him but he has these oddities that are hard to pin down. He’s a puzzle, and the beauty of Max’s script is that he doesn’t turn Adam’s story into some kind of medical documentary but instead into a very cleverly woven and emotional tale of a man and a woman connecting.”

Still, Dancy knew his work would be cut out for him. “I knew next to nothing about Asperger’s Syndrome so I realized if I was going to go any further with the role, I’d have to really educate myself,” he explains. “I discovered the reality is that people are really just beginning to understand it.”

In addition to reading books, searching websites and consulting with Mayer, who had done extensive research on Asperger’s while writing the script, Dancy met with several Aspies in person to get a better sense of what it’s like to live with the syndrome. “People were very generous in talking with me,” he says, “and it was invaluable to me both to listen to what they had to say and to observe them. I felt a real responsibility to do that.”

Even so, at times he felt like he was walking a high wire. He continues: “Most of the preparation for this role was quite a solitary process because Adam is so much in his own head. The challenge for me was learning to play with a whole different set of responses to typical situations. This took me way out my comfort zone because actors are all about interactions and reactions and Adam isn’t! Even after a lot of preparation, every day felt like a risk.”

In spite of the gamble, Dancy ultimately found Adam exhilarating to play. “I really had a lot of fun because there’s something so endearing about him,” he confesses. “There’s no agenda to Adam, no dishonesty, no duplicity and he consistently says the things that we all wish we could say but are barred by social conventions. I especially enjoyed the kind of strange courting he does of Beth. He is at times a very funny character but one of the keys was never stepping outside the character for the sake of a joke. Max and I both felt that we should never push the humour too far.”

It also helped that Rose Byrne already knew someone with Asperger’s Syndrome. “I have a family friend who has Asperger’s and I think it’s becoming more common. More and more people are touched by some form of autism,” she says. “What I like about Beth is that when she finally learns about the nature of Adam’s condition, she doesn’t judge him for it because she finds so many things about him that are liberating and refreshing. His uncensored honesty is such a rare thing in this day and age and his candidness with her really, really touches her.”

According to recent statistics, 1 in every 150 children growing up in the United States will be diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder (source: Autism Society of America Fact Sheet). Indeed, a new case of autism, including Asperger’s Syndrome, is diagnosed every 20 minutes (source: Center for Disease Control study). Although experts do not agree on a concrete reason for this rapid emergence of autistic behavior – theories ranges from better means of diagnosis to an unknown environmental cause – they do agree that it is increasingly common for people to encounter someone with autistic tendencies among family, friends and co-workers.

Asperger’s Syndrome is considered a form of autism, but is generally distinguished from Classic Autism by higher linguistic and cognitive functioning. Because of the higher degree of functioning, many people with Asperger’s have traditionally been considered simply eccentric or odd. It is only recently that doctors have begun diagnosing the Syndrome. The primary signs of Asperger’s Syndrome include (sources: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, mayoclinic.com, DSM-IV and Asperger’s Syndrome Coalition of the United States):

Obsession or unusual preoccupation with certain subjects to the exclusion of other activities (common examples include train schedules, sports statistics and weather)

Repetitive routines and rituals

Socially inappropriate behavior

Lack of emotional reciprocity and engaging in one-sided conversations

Restricted or improper use of gestures and facial expressions, including eye-to-eye gaze and body postures

Having a hard time “reading” what people are thinking

Research into the likely complex neurological causes of Asperger’s Syndrome is still in early stages, but the most common explanation to date has been an inability to form what is known as a “theory of mind” (sources: Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism by Simon Baron Cohen and Empathy, Mindblidness and Theory of Mind by Linda Soraya in Psychology Today, May 2008). A theory of mind is the innate aptitude to understand that other people have their own feelings, beliefs and desires which are entirely different from our own. It is a key component of the human capacity for closeness, but also a major factor in the human tendency to engage in lies and deception. Without a theory of mind, those with Asperger’s face obstacles in communication and intimacy, but they are also often bracingly honest.

Conventional treatment for Asperger’s Syndrome usually starts in childhood and involves teaching children how to interact with their peers through behavioral therapy, rehearsal and social rules. However, some experts in the field suggest that Asperger’s Syndrome should be seen as a difference in seeing the world, rather than a disability, and call for tolerance of “neurodiversity” (source: The Autism Rights Movement by Andrew Solomon in New York Magazine, May 2008). After all, many people with Asperger’s Syndrome lead successful lives, have exceptional careers and get married. As Harvey Blume wrote in his 1998 article entitled “Neurodiversity” in The Atlantic: “Neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biological diversity is for life in general. Who can say what kind of wiring will prove best at any given moment? Cybernetics and computer culture, for example, may favor a somewhat autistic cast of mind.”