Ayad Akhtar

Ayad Akhtar (born 1970) is an American actor and writer for the stage, film, and television. The son of Pakistani immigrants, he grew up in Wisconsin and studied theater at Brown University. He later studied acting with Jerzy Grotowski in Italy and completed a master’s degree in directing at Columbia University in New York. His play *Disgraced* received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Nestroy Theatre Prize. Akhtar’s first novel was published in 2012.