The shadow of Ayn Rand looms large over the modern world.

Her ideas about unregulated capitalism and heroic selfishness helped shape everything from the Tea Party to her close friend and disciple Alan Greenspan, who chaired the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades. To Fortune 500 CEOs, her philosophy is what Scientology is to movie stars. A belief system. A badge of honor. A private religion with better suits.

In this intimate two-character play, Ayn Rand is put on trial. The audience serves as the jury and decides the verdict.

Was her vision of laissez-faire capitalism the fountainhead of our current economic reality? Did her celebration of selfishness evolve into social Darwinism? In her private life, did she live by the ideals she preached through heroes like John Galt?

The trial examines both the power and the contradictions of her legacy. Her intellectual influence and political reach. Her appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Her impact on the Federal Reserve. Her drug use, her affair with a man half her age, and her famously volatile temperament.

Like Rand’s own play The Night of January 16th, the ending is determined by the audience. Guilty or not guilty.

The Trial of Ayn Rand is an interactive theatrical event designed to ignite debate, disagreement, and post-show conversation about money, morality, and the stories we tell ourselves about success.