Synopsis: Jacob McNeal (Academy Award® winner Robert Downey Jr.) is a great writer, one of our greatest, a perpetual candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. But McNeal also has an estranged son, a new novel, old axes to grind and an unhealthy fascination with Artificial Intelligence. Pulitzer Prize-winner Ayad Akhtar’s new play is a startling and wickedly smart examination of the inescapable humanity – and increasing inhumanity – of the stories we tell. Directed by Tony Award® winner Bartlett Sher. Additional casting to be announced.

Artistic Statement: In his new play, McNEAL, Ayad Akhtar has imaginatively created a haunting, memorable portrait of an accomplished author and tormented man. Jacob McNeal is a celebrated American novelist who has won numerous accolades over an illustrious career, but whose overwhelming desire to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature cultivates a growing obsession with Artificial Intelligence. What distinguishes McNEAL and gives its title character greater complexity is Mr. Akhtar’s incorporation of AI as an essential dramatic element of his story. The projected images that Mr. Akhtar has integrated into his play—initially McNeal’s typed prompts and ChatGPT’s responses scrolling out in real time—become more elaborate when McNeal inputs a diverse array of textual sources—Shakespeare, Flaubert, Ibsen, and Kafka among them—and instructs AI to reconfigure them in the style of Jacob McNeal. Mr. Akhtar has also envisioned scene-transition projections, including deepfake videos, which add hallucinatory disorientation when McNeal’s hold on reality weakens. Akhtar’s work is a masterful and timely examination of AI’s growing impact on artistic creativity.