Junk - 2017 Broadway History , Info & More
Vivian Beaumont Theatre (Broadway)
150 West 65th St. at Broadway New York, NY 10023
Ayad Akhtar returns to Lincoln Center Theater with his new play, JUNK. Set in the high-flying, risk-seeking, teetering financial world of the 1980s and inspired by the real junk bond kings of the day, this riveting story shows us from the inside how money became the only thing that mattered.
Financier Robert Merkin will stop at nothing to take over an iconic American manufacturing company, changing the rules as he goes. With his brilliance matched only by his swagger, Merkin sets in motion nothing less than a financial civil war, pitting magnates against workers, lawyers against journalists, and every one against themselves.
Steven Pasquale (The Bridges of Madison County and TV's "Rescue Me") leads an impeccable cast, directed by Tony winner Doug Hughes (Doubt), in this no-holds-barred portrait of the dark side of the American Dream.
Junk - 2017 - Broadway Cast
FEATURED REVIEWS FOR Junk
Broadway Review: In Ayad Akhtar’s ‘Junk’, Barbarians Storm The Steel Gates
8 / 10
So it's a clever deception, this wall of numbers created by designer John Lee Beatty, who is much better known for sets that look like places where people actually live. The people who live in the world of Ayad Akhtar's Junk, which,opened tonight at Lincoln CenterTheater, have heads full of numbers, closets hung with hand-tailored suits and barrels, barges, of cash. They live in architected apartments that look like high-end hotel suites and guzzle Ch. Petrus like so much soda pop. Their children roll through parks in tank-like perambulators pushed by nannies with back-up nannies. Not that I'm envious.
Theater Review: High Finance and Low Crimes, in Ayad Akhtar’s Junk
8 / 10
Junk's driving tempo, cinematic smash-cuts, and clarity of underlying action undoubtedly hold our attention. Akhtar has said that he wants audiences 'to have an emotional experience of this process of capital' - to get caught up in the thrust of each scene ('somebody's instructing somebody, somebody's stealing from somebody, somebody's betraying somebody else's confidence') even if phrases like 'undisclosed equity stakes' sound a bit like Chinese. Director Doug Hughes understands that one of the things Akhtar is doing in Junk is riffing on the Shakespearean history play. He keeps the action rolling relentlessly forward on an effectively streamlined, compartmentalized set by John Lee Beatty that - not unlike an Elizabethan theater - allows for quick, imaginative shifts in time and space.
Category
Junk History
Other Productions of Junk
| 2017 | Broadway |
Lincoln Center Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Junk - 2017 Broadway Awards and Nominations
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Play | Junk |
| 2018 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Play | Ben Stanton |
| 2018 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Ayad Akhtar |
Videos

