Hi! I’m Laila, a writer-actor based in New Hampshire. My mom grew up in Lebanon and my dad grew up in Syria, making me 100% first-generation Arab. I spent five years in Los Angeles falling in love with sitcoms, improv, and indie filmmaking. Now that I live in the wilds of New Hampshire (y’all, there’s no Trader Joe’s here), I can be found walking to the park or having a backyard BBQ because I now have space for a grill. (WILD.)

After studying biology and music at Southern Illinois University, I booked my first job as Jacques/Silvius in Stone Soup Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.” In Chicago, I performed in different storefront theaters working on new works and Shakespeare.

Multi-hyphenate life means I have had the opportunity to stretch into different mediums: theater, improv, sitcom, drama, dramedy, voice acting, and radio plays. Throughout these mediums, my guiding star has been the intersectionality of my identity and the joy, humanity, and wonder of being an Arab American woman.

Career Highlights: “The Great Pyramid Scheme” Podcast (Creator, Writer, Actor; audioplay series), “Tribe: the Story of the First Arab American Improv Team” (Writer, Actor; Top 5 Comedies at the Hollywood Fringe Festival), “Farah Rocks” chapter book series by Susan Muaddi Darraj (Narrator; Orange Sky Audio, Audible), Free Pizza Productions (Co-Founder, Writer, Actor; TV pilot presentations and sketch comedy shorts)

Being a writer lets me create the world as it could be. I believe art is a dialogue. I believe art is opportunity. I believe art is activism. I write for my girls and I write for me.