Ayad Akhtar

Show Summary for American Dervish 
Hayat Shah is a young American in love for the first time. His normal life of school, baseball, and video games had previously been distinguished only by his Pakistani heritage and by the frequent chill between his parents, who fight over things he is too young to understand. Then Mina arrives, and everything changes. Based on Ayad Akhtar’s brilliant first novel, American Dervish. 

Show Summary for Evicted
Based on Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer–winning book, Evicted follows eight Milwaukee families navigating housing insecurity in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.  Evicted is a moving portrait of the human cost of eviction and the systemic forces that perpetuate poverty in America.

Bio
Ayad was born in New York City and raised in Brookfield, Wisconsin. He is a novelist and author of American Dervish, published in over 20 languages worldwide. His play Disgraced won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for the 2015 Tony Award for best play. His plays The Who & The What and The Invisible Hand received Off-Broadway runs and are currently being produced around the world. His latest play, McNeal, premiered at Lincoln Center Theater in 2024 can received is Regional Premiere at Milwaukee Rep in 2026. Akhtar was listed as the most produced playwright for the 2015/16 Season by American Theatre. As a screenwriter, he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay for The War Within. He has received fellowships from MacDowell, Djerassi, the Sundance Institute, Ucross, and Yaddo, where he currently serves as a Board Director. He is also a Board Trustee at PEN/America, NYTW and Milwaukee Repertory Theater.