The Collaboration

Boxers are like painters, both smear their blood on the canvas.

New York, 1984. Fifty-six-year-old Andy Warhol’s star is falling. Jean-Michel Basquiat is the new wonder-kid taking the art world by storm. When Basquiat agrees to collaborate with Warhol on a new exhibition, it soon becomes the talk of the city.

As everyone awaits the ’greatest exhibition in the history of contemporary art’, the two artists embark on a shared journey, both artistic and deeply personal, that re-draws both their worlds.

This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at London’s Young Vic Theatre in February 2022.

Anthony McCarten is a New Zealand-born playwright, novelist, journalist, television writer and filmmaker. He is best known for writing the biopics The Theory of Everything (2014), Darkest Hour (2017), Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and The Two Popes (2019). A double BAFTA-winning screenwriter, he has been nominated four times for Academy Awards, among them nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Theory of Everything and The Two Popes. He is the author of ten previous plays and writer of the ’book’ for the upcoming Neil Diamond Broadway musical, A Beautiful Noise (2022). The Collaboration is the second instalment of his The Worship Trilogy, the other two parts being The Two Popes and Wednesday at Warren’s, Friday at Bill’s. As a sequence, they separately explore our worship of religion, art and money. He lives in London