Ayad Akhtar

From Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Graduated from Brown University. Spent a year working with acting theorist and pioneer, Jerzy Grotowski (Towards a Poor Theater). Has taught acting on his own and alongside Andre Gregory in New York City & Vienna, Austria. Alumnus of the Graduate Film Program at Columbia University, with a degree in directing. Winner of a New York Documentary Center's Young Documentary Filmmakers' Award, an IFP Audience Choice Award and Programming Committee's Award for Best Film at the 2003 Columbia University Film Festival. Author of numerous plays and screenplays. Ayad was star and co-writer of The War Within (Magnolia), which was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay. His first novel, American Dervish, is being published by Little, Brown and Company in January 2012.