WRITER | RESEARCHER | DRAMATURG
ليلى لطيفة
Laila is a London-based writer and researcher working across stage, screen, and editorial. Her work explores identity, belonging, and power, with a focus on lives that are often marginalised or misrepresented, touching sociopolitical themes and rooted in storytelling. She is dedicated to elevating stories that haven’t yet had a chance to be told, particularly those including mixed-race, diasporic, and working-class communities. She is drawn to collaborative projects where she can ask deep questions, continue learning and help drive meaningful change.
Laila has been writing for the stage for five years and producing theatre for seven, developing work that sits between storytelling, research and lived experience. Her practice draws on folklore, feminism, and oral tradition, and centres questions of inheritance, memory, and who gets to be heard within cultural and social structures. In 2024, her play RAH (★★★★) was longlisted for the RSC’s 37 Plays and later shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award. Her play Cally was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting, and my debut play its only funny with stage directions was published in Arab Stages. In 2024, she was awarded an Arts Council England DYCP grant to develop Whispers of Tradition, a research-led project exploring Irish and Moroccan folktales, and was later invited to spend a month in Cairo as part of D-CAFE’s cohort, a collaboration between the British Council and Orient Productions where she developed her most recent play Spicy White. Alongside theatre, She is expanding her practice into long-form writing. She publishes essays and reflective work exploring identity, language and cultural inheritance. Alongside her writing, she produces her own work and supports emerging artists through dramaturgical sessions, collaborative projects and workshops.