Ayad Akhtar, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, has won numerous Tony Awards over the previous decade. His previous Broadway productions, “Disgraced” in 2014 and “Junk” in 2017, were both nominated for Best Play, making him one of only three dozen playwrights in Tony history to receive two nominations. In September, “McNeal,” a drama starring Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr., made its Broadway debut. Downey Jr. plays a wealthy novelist who is disturbed and erratic.

With the tremendously popular Downey at the helm, fresh off his award-winning performance in “Oppenheimer” and an Emmy for his lifestyle program “Downey’s Dream Cars,” “McNeal” will attempt to achieve something no other Akhtar play has done before: receive a Tony acting nomination.

Akhtar’s Broadway debut, “Disgraced,” for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2013, featured a quintet of performers in a slow-burn drama on religion, politics, and identity. Aside from praising the play, critics raved about the cast members. Hari Dhillon received high praise for his performance as the lead. Charles Isherwood, a former New York Times reviewer, described his performance as having “a coiled intensity.”Karen Pittman, now renowned for “The Morning Show,” was also praised, with Isherwood calling her “magnetic and funny.” Despite these accolades, neither got a Tony nomination.

The playwright’s second step into Broadway theater was his capitalist attack “Junk,” which examines the junk bond mania of 1980s Wall Street, inspired by the real-life character Michael Milken. Steven Pasquale, a New York theater legend, played Milken’s fictional stand-in, Robert Merkin, leading an ensemble of 23 players. The actor received positive feedback, despite conflicting reviews for the show.According to Adam Feldman of Time Out New York and Sarah Holdren of Vulture, he is “chilling” and “darkly charismatic.” Pasquale ultimately did not receive a Tony nomination, and after 15 years on Broadway, he is still waiting for his first.

Unlike “Disgraced” and “Junk,” “McNeal” received more unfavorable feedback from critics when it debuted two months ago.Jesse Green (New York Times) called it “turgid” and Feldman wrote, “Nothing in ‘McNeal’ is convincing: The characters are thin, the timelines are off, the situations are at once implausible and cliché.” This response to the production suggests that Akhtar’s immaculate track record will come to an end, making it impossible to imagine nominators liking Downey despite the meatiness of his character. As novelist Jacob McNeal, the actor does get to sink his teeth into challenging material, from alcoholism to damaging self-doubt, self-destructive behavior, a fractured relationship with his son, and accusations of multiple forms of plagiarism.

Downey is also making his acting debut in a highly competitive year for performers in plays. This fall has already seen strong performances from Cole Escola (“Oh, Mary!”), Peter Friedman (“JOB”), Daniel Dae Kim (“Yellow Face”), and Kit Connor (“Romeo + Juliet”). The spring will see more big names join the fold, including fellow Oscar winners Denzel Washington (“Othello”) and George Clooney (“Good Night, and Good Luck”), plus folks from “Cult of Love,” “Eureka Day,” and other shows once the category placements of their actors are determined.

And while it never helps one’s chances to have a show shutter in the fall – long before Tony nominators convene to fill out their ballots – voters have demonstrated that they have very long memories. Last year two of the five nominees were from closed productions (Leslie Odom Jr. from “Purlie Victorious” and Liev Schreiber from “Doubt”). The year prior all but one of the nominees were from shuttered productions: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Corey Hawkins (“Topdog/Underdog”), Stephen McKinley Henderson (“Between Riverside and Crazy”), and Wendell Pierce (“Death of a Salesman”). “McNeal” concludes its limited run on Sunday, November 24.