Leah Nanako Winkler

Leah Nanako Winkler (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington Kentucky. Her plays include God Said This, Two Mile Hollow, Kentucky, Hot Asian Doctor Husband, Thirty-Six and The Brightest Thing in the World as well as many short plays all produced Off-Broadway and regionally. Accolades and fellowships: Yale Drama Series Prize, Mark O’Donnell Prize from The Actors Fund and Playwrights Horizons, Audible’s Emerging Playwrights Fund, Jerome New York Fellow at the Lark, Francesca Primus Prize, a Steinberg Playwright Award and the 2025 Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, 2025 Will Glickman Award. She is published by American Theater Magazine, Nanjing University’s Stage and Screen Reviews, Yale University Press, Backstage, Smith and Krauss, Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service. TV credits include  A24’s Ramy, where she along with the other writers won a Peabody Award, Love Life on HBO MAX, Schmigadoon!, The Summer I Turned Pretty, and Elsbeth. Upcoming: Memoirs of Amorous Gentleman with original music by Duncan Sheik and Crazy Rich Asians the musical. She is a proud alumnus of WP theater’s writer/director lab, EST Youngblood and Ma Yi Theater Lab.