Leah Nanako Winkler
Leah Nanako Winkler (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington, Kentucky. Her plays include Kentucky, God Said This, Two Mile Hollow, Hot Asian Doctor Husband, Thirty-Six, The Brightest Thing in the World, and You Seem Sad. She has received the Yale Drama Series Prize, Mark O’Donnell Award, Jerome New York Fellowship, Francesca Primus Prize, Steinberg Playwright Award, Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, Will Glickman Award, Peabody Award. TV credits include Ramy, Love Life, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Schmigadoon! and Elsbeth. Her short film, Get Her Back, which she also directed, was produced by Indian Paintbrush/LuckyChap Entertainment and recently premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. With lyricist and composer Duncan Sheik, she wrote the musical adaptation of Anno Moyoco’s graphic novel, Memoirs of Amorous Gentleman, which will premiere off-broadway Fall 2027 at The Night Egg, a brand-new venue built inside the Culture Club (the former home of Sleep No More). She is an alumni of Youngblood , Ma Yi Theater Lab, Dorothy Streslin New American Playwrights Group and Ucross/Sundance fellow, WP Lab 2018. She is currently writing the book for Crazy Rich Asians: The Musical! MFA Brooklyn College.
May Adrales
May Adrales (Director) is a director, artistic leader, teacher, and mother who has directed over 40 world premieres. Her work has been seen at notable theaters such as Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage, MCC, Yale Rep, Guthrie Theater, Huntington Theater, Signature Theater, Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, WP Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep, and South Coast Rep. She has received the Ammerman Award at Arena Stage and Theater Communications Group’s Alan Schneider award. She is also a finalist for the SDCF Zelda Finchandler Award and has held fellowships and artistic positions at numerous prestigious institutions. May currently serves as the Director of the Theatre Program and Assistant Professor at Fordham University. She has also taught at Juilliard, Harvard/ART, ACT, Fordham, NYU, Bard College, Yale School of Drama, and Brown/Trinity MFA program. May holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. (www.mayadrales.com)
Ma-Yi Theater Company
Ma-Yi Theater Company (Co-Producer) is one of the nation’s leading incubators of new plays by Asian American writers. Founded in 1989, Ma-Yi develops and produces bold, adventurous work that expands the American theater canon and places Asian American stories, artists, and imagination at the center of the stage. For more than three decades, the company has championed formally daring, politically engaged, and deeply human plays that reflect the complexity of contemporary American life. Ma-Yi’s work has earned major recognition, including multiple Obie Awards, Lucille Lortel Awards, an Off-Broadway Alliance Award, a Richard Rodgers Award, and a special Drama Desk Award honoring its excellence and impact. Home to the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the country’s largest resident company of Asian American playwrights, Ma-Yi continues to nurture vital new voices, support groundbreaking artists, and shape the future of American theater with urgency, rigor, and imagination.
