Cast, Creative Team Set for Ayad Akhtar's JUNK: THE GOLDEN AGE OF DEBT at La Jolla Playhouse

La Jolla Playhouse announces the cast and creative team for its world-premiere production of JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt, by Pulitzer Prize winner and Tony Award nominee Ayad Akhtar (Broadway's Disgraced; Playhouse's The Who & The What), directed by Tony Award winner Doug Hughes (Outside Mullingar, Doubt). The recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt runs in the Mandell Weiss Theatre July 26 - August 21. Tickets are available at LaJollaPlayhouse.org or by calling (858) 550-1010.

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. How did we get here? How did the world we once knew change? Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ayad Akhtar takes us back to the hotbed of the '80s and offers us an origin story for the world that finance has given us, a sexy and epic thriller about an upstart genius hell-bent on changing all the rules.

"Ayad's latest work takes on the ruthless world of debt financing in the late '80s, from hostile takeovers to the intrigues of high-profile investment bankers, lawyers and arbitrageurs. This world-premiere play portrays their industry-toppling deals on stage in a style akin to Shakespeare's Henry IV, where the battlefield is a corporate boardroom, and The Players are kings of finance," said Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley.

The cast features Annika Boras as "Amy Merkin," Benjamin Burdick (Blood and Gifts) as "Giuseppi Addesso," Tony Carlin as "Corrigan Wiley," Josh Cooke as "Robert Merkin," Jennifer Ikeda as "Judy Chen," Jason Kravits as "Murray Lefkovitz," Jeff Marlow (Hollywood, Glengarry Glen Ross, Sideways) as "Boris Pronsky," Zakiya Iman Markland (Up Here) as "Jacqueline Blount," David Rasche as "Leo Tresler," Matthew Rauch as "Israel Peterman," Armando Riesco as "Raúl Rivera," Linus Roache as "Thomas Everson," Henry Stram as "Maximilien Cizik," Keith Wallace (The Bitter Game) as "Kevin Walsh" and UC San Diego MFA candidates Zora Howard as "Charlene Stewart," Sean McIntyre as "Mark O'Hare" and Hunter Spangler as "Devon Atkins."

The creative team includes John Lee Beatty, Scenic Designer; William Mellette, Costume Designer; Ben Stanton (Surf Report, Unusual Acts of Devotion), Lighting Designer; Mark Bennett (An Iliad, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Most Wanted, among others), Original Music and Sound Design; Gabriel Greene, Dramaturg; and Charles Means, Stage Manager.

Ayad Akhtar's The Who & The What had its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in 2013 and was developed as part of The Playhouse's DNA New Work Series. He is a novelist and author of American Dervish, published in over 20 languages worldwide and named a 2012 Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, Toronto's Globe and Mail, Shelf Awareness and O, The Oprah Magazine. His play Disgraced won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, ran on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre and is currently the most produced play in the country. In addition to Disgraced, his plays The Who & The What and The Invisible Hand received off-Broadway runs and are currently being produced nationwide. Mr. 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 been the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, Djerassi, Sundance Institute, Ucross and Yaddo.

Doug Hughes' recent Broadway productions include Outside Mullingar, The Big Knife, An Enemy of the People, Born Yesterday, Elling, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Oleanna, the Tony-nominated revival of The Royal Family, A Man for All Seasons, Mauritius, the Tony-nominated revival of Inherit the Wind, A Touch of the Poet, Frozen (Tony Award nomination, Best Director) and Doubt, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Director. Recent off-Broadway productions include The City of Conversation, Death Takes a Holiday, The Whipping Man, An Experiment with an Air Pump, Flesh and Blood, and Defiance. In addition to the Tony, he has been awarded Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel, Obie and Callaway Awards for his productions.

The Tony Award-winning La Jolla Playhouse is internationally-renowned for creating some of the most exciting and adventurous work in American theatre, through its new play development initiatives, its innovative Without Walls series, artist commissions and residencies, including BD Wong, Daniel Beatty and Kirsten Greenidge. Currently led by Artistic Director Christopher Ashley and Managing Director Michael S. Rosenberg, The Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, and reborn in 1983 under the artistic leadership of Des McAnuff. La Jolla Playhouse has had 25 productions transfer to Broadway, garnering 35 Tony Awards, among them Jersey Boys, Memphis, The Who's Tommy, Big River, as well as Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays and the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife, both fostered as part of The Playhouse's Page To Stage Program. LaJollaPlayhouse.org.

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