Lately, the New York theatre can't get enough of physicists and mathematicians. Uptown, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg rehash the past in Michael Frayn's Copenhagen. And now, hot on the heels of the news that Target Margin Theater will present a bevey of eccentric mathematicians in The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem, Soho Rep and the Ridge Theatre step forward with their latest production, Mac Wellman's Hypatia, named for the 5th-century mathematician, philosopher and pagen killed by Christian monks way back in Alexandria in the year 415.

As Wellman tells the story, Hypatia reappears every few centuries or so to help inventors and rulers with a theoretical hint here, a new machine there. The production, beginning previews May 10, opening May 13 and running to June 10, is directed by Bob McGrath, the artistic director of Ridge Theatre, and features a cast of 15.

Wellman a downtown darling of long standing, is the author of dozens of plays, including Girl Gone, FNU LNU, Second-Hand Smoke, A Murder of Crows, Bad Penny and Infrared.

Tickets are $12-$15. Soho Rep is located at 46 Walker Street in Tribeca. For information, call (212) 334-0962.

--By Robert Simonson