Leila Buck
Leila is a Lebanese American writer, actor, and intercultural educator who has lived and worked across the U.S. and in 22 countries.
She has performed and developed her plays with/at the Public Theater, Culture Project, Brooklyn Museum, Arena Stage (Best Performances, DC Metro Theater Arts), New York Theatre Workshop (Drama League nomination), and the Wilma Theater (Barrymore Award).
A State Department Speaker Specialist and Cultural Envoy, Leila has led workshops and dialogues on theatrical tools for cross-cultural communication, self-expression and community empowerment with youth, aid workers, UN delegates and educators in Denmark, Geneva, Istanbul, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and Lebanon.
She received the Edgar Beckham Social Justice award for her work as artist-in-residence for Wesleyan University’s Doris Duke Foundation Building Bridges grant, teaching and creating interactive theatrical dialogues with students, faculty and community about the (mis)representation of Muslims in the U.S..
She has taught storytelling and theater for literacy, conflict resolution, and intercultural engagement with New York Theatre Workshop and Lincoln Center and at cultural, educational and community-based institutions across the U.S. and around the world.
Her work is featured in/on TCG’s Finding Home Essay Salon; Stages of Resistance (ed. Caridad Svich); Innovation in Five Acts; Etching Our Own Image: Voices from the Arab American Art Movement, and Four Arab-American Plays.
She is a member of the Public Theater’s inaugural Emerging Writers Group, a Usual Suspect with New York Theatre Workshop, and has taught Participatory Performance and Civic Engagement, Representation of Arabs and Muslims in U.S. Theater, and Creation and Representation in U.S. Theater at NYU.
More on her most recent work at americandreamsplay.com