Leah Nanako Winkler

Leah Nanako Winkler is a Japanese American playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington, Kentucky currently living in New York City. Her play God Said This won the 2018 Yale Drama Series Prize. Her play Two Mile Hollow recently won the Francesca Primus Prize.

Leah Nanako Winkler
Leah Nanako Winkler at the Ensemble Studio Theatre
Born
Kamakura, Japan
NationalityAmerican, Japanese
Other namesウインクラァーナナコ
Alma materBrooklyn College
OccupationPlaywright
Notable work
Kentucky, Two Mile Hollow, God Said This

Early life

Winkler was born in Kamakura, Japan to a Japanese mother and a Caucasian American father,[1] was a child model in Japan because of her Western looks and she modeled for a clothing magazine called Samantha.[2][3] She came to the United States while still only a child and spoke primarily only Japanese. She learned English, but continued to study Japanese in a Japanese school. She grew up in Lexington, Kentucky and she credits her high school drama teacher at Tates Creek High School for introducing her to theatre.[4] Winkler moved to New York in 2006 to become a writer with the money she earned donating eggs to a fertility clinic. She worked many odd jobs to support herself and her theater career including working overnights at a 24-hour Starbucks. She received an MFA from Brooklyn College in 2018.

Career

Once in New York, Winkler formed her own theatre company called Everywhere Theatre Group. ETG produced Leah's plays as well as collaboratively written plays including Big Girls Club (2007), Dead People (2008 with Theodore Nicholas), Formula Play(2009), A Pale Horse Death Followed With: A Life Time Original Series (2008 with Theodore Nicholas) at downtown venues including The Brick, Dixon Place and the Ontological Hysteric Theater. In 2010 ETG's play The Internet (Incubator Arts Project) garnered favorable reviews in the New York Times. In 2011 Flying Snakes in 3D!!,[5] a science fiction parody meta-play about making a play when you aren't white and don't come from money ran at the Brick Theater before transferring to the New Ohio and stirred public heated debates regarding class privileged in the theater community. Leah was subsequently invited to present a manifesto regarding these issues at the Prelude Festival In 2012 alongside Richard Foreman and Mac Wellman. Shortly after ETG imploded. Leah continued to self-produce her short-form experimental work often at bars alongside poets and musicians. In 2013 Winkler published Nagoriyuki And Other Short Plays: Performed in NYC between 2008-2013.[6] In 2014, she had two plays Death for Sydney Black and Diversity Awareness Picnic on The Kilroys' List, a gender parity initiative highlighting underproduced works by female playwrights. In August 2014, Leah's play Taisetsu Na Hito was selected from an initial pool of 1,385 submissions to be performed at Sam French's Offf Off Broadway Festival Plays, 39th series[7] It was published later that year.

In 2015, Winkler published another book of plays, The Lowest Form of Writing[8] Her play Double Suicide At Ueno Park was produced by Ensemble Studio Theater. Her blog post about a yellowface production of The Mikado started a protest and led to further controversy.

In 2016, Winkler's play Kentucky was on the Kilroys list and had its world premiere at the Ensemble Studio Theatre as a co-production with the Radio Drama Network and Page 73 Productions in New York. The play garnered favorable reviews and the Times called her a "Distinctive New Voice"

Th West Coast premiere was at East West Players in Los Angeles in the fall.[9]

In spring 2017, she was selected by the Sundance institute as a Sundance/Ucross Fellow.[10] Winkler was then named the 2017-2019 Jerome New York Fellow at the Lark.[11][12] after being awarded the first-ever Mark O'Donnell Prize from the Actors Fund and Playwrights Horizons.[13] She also became one of Audible's first ever recipients of the Emerging Playwrights Fund to write an audio play. Leah's play Two Mile Hollow had arolling premiere at four theaters across the U.S., The First Floor Theater (Chicago), Mixed Blood Theatre/Theater Mu (Minneapolis), Ferocious Lotus (San Francisco), and Artists at Play (Los Angeles) to critical acclaim. In 2018, her playGod Said This was selected for the 42nd Humana Festival of New American Plays, in Louisville, Kentucky in February–April 2018.[14] In March, 2018, God Said This was selected by Pulitzer Prize winning Ayad Akhtar from over 1600 plays from 50 countries to win the Yale Drama Series Prize. It premiered Off-Broadway in 2019 at Primary Stages. Also in 2019 she premiered her play Hot Asian Doctor Husband at Theater Mu and Mixed Blood and an audio play, Nevada-Tan exclusively on Audible.

Winkler is an alumna of the Youngblood group at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, a Time Warner Fellow at WP Theater, and a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Playwrights Group at Primary Stages.　

Selected Plays
  • Death for Sydney Black (2014, terraNova Collective, 2015 Kilroys Honorable Mention)
  • Diversity Awareness Picnic (2014, Kilroys Honorable Mention)
  • Double Suicide At Ueno Park (2015, Ensemble Studio Theatre, 35th Marathon of One-Act Plays)
  • The Adventures of Minami: The Robot From Japan Who Makes You Feel Safe When Loneliness is Palpable (2016, Brick)[15]
  • Kentucky (2016, Ensemble Studio Theatre and Page 73; East West Players)
  • Two Mile Hollow (2017-2018, Artists At Play (Los Angeles); Mixed Blood Theatre/Theater Mu (Minneapolis); First Floor Theater (Chicago); Ferocious Lotus (San Francisco), 2017 Kilroys' List)
  • Linus and Murray (2017, Ensemble Studio Theatre, 36th Marathon of One-Act Plays)
  • God Said This (2018, 42nd Humana Festival of New American Plays)
  • Hot Asian Doctor Husband (2019, Mu Performing Arts/ Mixed Blood Theater)
  • Nevada-Tan(2019, Audible)

Awards
  • 2015 Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival
  • 2015 Truman Capote Fellowship in Creative Writing
  • 2017-2019 Jerome New York Fellowship recipient
  • 2017 Mark O'Donnell Prize
  • 2018 Yale Drama Series Prize
  • 2019 Francesca Primus Prize
  • 2020 Peabody Award

References
  1. "Quarter Life Identity Crisis".
  2. "Conversation with Leah Nanako Winkler".
  3. "A Young Playwright's Quest to Ask Difficult Questions About Race, Class,and Gender".
  4. "Kentucky Playwright Leah Nanako Winkler Now in New York, Enjoying Success on the Theater Scene".
  5. "Flying Snakes in 3D!!".
  6. "Nagoriyuki on Amazon".
  7. "Off Off Broadway Festival Plays, 39th Series".
  8. "Lowest Form of Writing on Amazon".
  9. "Kentucky at East West Players".
  10. "Ucross 2014 Residents".
  11. "Jerome New York Fellowship".
  12. "Leah Nanako Winkler Receives 2017-19 Jerome Fellowship".
  13. "Leah Nanako Winkler Awarded First-Ever Mark O'Donnell Prize".
  14. "42nd Humana Festival of New American Plays".
  15. "The Adventures of Minami: The Robot From Japan Who Makes You Feel Safe When Loneliness is Palpable".
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