Leah Nanako Winkler

Leah Nanako Winkler
Born Kamakura, Japan
Nationality American
Occupation Playwright
Notable work Kentucky, Two Mile Hollow, God Said This

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 is in the 2018 Humana Festival of New American Plays and is the winner of the 2018 Yale Drama Series Prize.

Early life

Winkler was born in Kamakura, Japan to an American father and a Japanese mother,[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 in Union Square. 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 aftet ETG ran out of money and inploded. Leah was then invited join terraNova Collectives Groundbreakers Playwright Group and Youngblood at the Ensemble Studio Theater. She 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 as part of Marathon.  Her blog post about a yellowface production of The Mikado started a protest that cancelled the production. This led to further conterversy.

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 currently having a rolling premiere at four theatres 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). In 2018, her newest play God 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 will premiere Off-Broadway in 2019 at Primary Stages.

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)

Commissions and awards

  • 2015 Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival[16]
  • 2015 & 2016 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nominee
  • 2015 A/P/A commission for the Japanese American National Museum (two-time recipient)
  • 2015 Truman Capote Fellowship in Creative Writing
  • 2016 Sloan commission recipient[16][17]
  • 2016 2G commissioned writer
  • 2016-2018 Time Warner Fellow at the Women's Project Lab
  • 2017 Sundance/Ucross Fellow
  • 2017 Atlantic Theater Company (Asian Mixfest) commission
  • 2017-2019 Jerome New York Fellowship recipient
  • 2017 The Innaurgural Mark O'Donnell Prize[13]
  • 2017 Audible Emerging Playwrights Fund commission for an audible play
  • 2018 Yale Drama Series Prize for God Said This[18]

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. 1 2 "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".
  16. 1 2 ""Sloan Commission Recipients 2016/17".
  17. ↑ "F*It Club to Present Seven Short Plays in The Spring Fling:Rebound".
  18. ↑ "Ayad Akhtar Selects GOD SAID THIS by Leah Nanako Winkler as Winner of Yale Drama Series Prize".
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