Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar Wins 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced has been awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Described by the Pulitzer jury as “a moving play that depicts a successful corporate lawyer painfully forced to consider why he has for so long camouflaged his Pakistani Muslim heritage,” the play was chosen over finalists Rapture, Blister, Burn by Gina Giondriddo and 4000 Miles by Amy Herzog. Akhtar will receive a prize of $10,000.

Disgraced debuted at Chicago's American Theater Company and was got its off-Broadway premiere in October 2012 at Lincoln Center Theater's Claire Tow Theater in a production starring Aasif Mandvi as Amir Kapoor, a Pakistani-American lawyer who distances himself from his cultural roots while moving up the corporate ladder. When Amir and his Caucasian wife, Emily (Heidi Armbruster), host a dinner party with guests who are black and Jewish, what starts out as a friendly conversation escalates into something more damaging. The play is currently in rehearsal at London's Bush Theatre for a new production that will begin performances on May 17, starring Hari Dhillon.

"I see the American experience as being defined by the immigrant paradigm of rupture and renewal: rupture with the old world, the old ways, and renewal of the self in a bright but difficult New World," Akhtar wrote in an essay about Disgraced for Broadway.com. "Even generations after the initial familial departure, Americans recapitulate this rupture and renewal in their own lives, with their families, with their communities. The remaking of the self seems to be the most essential of American journeys." To read the full essay, click here.

In addition to Disgraced, Akhtar co-wrote and starred in the 2005 feature film The War Within, which earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Screenplay, and is the author of the acclaimed novel American Dervish.

Lincoln Center Theater has a special reason to celebrate this year’s Pulitzers, since both Disgraced and 4000 Miles were first produced as LCT2 productions. Rapture, Blister, Burn was produced off-Broadway by Playwrights Horizons.

The 2013 Pulitzer Prize jury was chaired by Washington Post drama critic Peter Marks and included Princeton professor Jill Dolan, Tampa Bay Times arts critic John Fleming, Village Voice drama critic Alexis Soloski and past Pullitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies.