Junk ─ A Play

A fast-paced economic thriller that probes the financial deal making behind the mergers and acquisitions boom of the 1980s

The Deal. The Board Room. The Takeover. This is the battleground where titanic egos collide, where modern day kings are made and unmade. It's a world where debt is an asset and assets are excuses for more debt, a world where finance runs the show. An upstart genius hell-bent on rocketing to the top, Robert Merkin has established himself as the most successful junk bond trader in the business. His next move-the take-over of a venerable multinational steel corporation-may signal the end of his reign as the king of finance. But how can he lose at a game when he's the only one making the rules?

With JUNK, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ayad Akhtar takes us back to the hotbed of the '80s, offering us an origin story for the cutthroat world that finance has shaped and a dark, provocative take on the joys and sorrows of capitalist society.

Ayad Akhtar was born in New York City and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. An award-winning author, playwright, screenwriter, and actor, he is the author of a novel, American Dervish, published in over twenty languages worldwide, and was nominated for a 2006 Independent Spirit Award for best screenplay for the film The War Within. His plays include Disgraced, produced at New York's Lincoln Center Theater in 2012 and on Broadway in 2014 and recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; The Who & The What, produced at Lincoln Center Theater in 2014; and The Invisible Hand, produced at New York Theater Workshop in 2014. He has been the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo, as well as commissions from Lincoln Center Theater and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He is a graduate of Brown and Columbia Universities with degrees in Theater and Film Directing. He lives in New York City.