Leigh served as Editor-In-Chief of Arrive magazine for over a decade.
In 2015, Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City hosted her first play, The Generator, as part of its TONGUES reading series.
In 2018, Too Close to Home was a semifinalist in the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference and presented in an industry reading starring Judith Light. The play is directed by Andy Sandberg and is currently in development. In August 2022, it was part of the Page to Stage Play Festival in Brea, CA.
On March 27, 2021, Classic Six premiered as a zoom film at the Powerstories Voices of Truth Theatre Festival and won the Founder's Choice Award. It was an O'Neill National Playwrights Conference finalist that year, too, as well as a semifinalist in the Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition and a finalist in the 2022 Premiere Stages Play Festival. In January 2023, a new draft was presented in a reading by the Rose Theatre Co. at the National Arts Club in Washington, D.C. The Rose also produced Leigh's short play, Waiting for The Suzuki-Goulds, as a monologue.
In June 2022, Leigh's new one-act, All the Lonely Women, debuted at Rattlestick Theater's Global Forms Theater Festival in New York City. It was co-written with director Ines Braun.
Leigh's newest play, It's a Free Country, was a finalist for the 2022 Jane Chambers Award and debuted in the SheNYC Arts Summer Theater Festival in New York City on July 27, 2023.
Plays
In 1993, Frances Nolan, 22, works as a live-in nanny/researcher in Frank and Patricia McGuire’s Classic Six Manhattan apartment. Twenty-five years later, she returns and, as the evening unfolds, Frank and Patricia question her motives: Is she merely curious to revisit the place where she learned hard truths about marriage, power, accountability, and how ethics can shift during the course of a lifetime? Or does she plan to expose what she found out about Frank and Patricia all those years ago?
In January 1959, Isak Dinesen, the legendary, turban-clad Danish author of Out of Africa, traveled for the first time to the United States, where she asked to meet Carson McCullers and Marilyn Monroe. On February 5, McCullers obliged and hosted a luncheon at her home in Nyack, NY, not far from New York City. Also in attendance were Monroe’s husband at the time, the playwright Arthur Miller, and McCullers’s live-in nurse and dear friend, Ida “Sister” Reeder. In this, McCullers’s memory of the auspicious occasion, artists from throughout history join her as she and the group discuss life, love and the timeless pursuits of creativity and friendship.
Louisa “Lou” Clay is the author of a cult classic feminist novel that recently premiered as a TV series. It’s a massive hit, causing a slew of unintended consequences — and death threats — thanks to the current political climate and rage against the patriarchy that is the hallmark of the show.
Too Close to Home is about the Hill family, which for years has revolved around the oldest daughter, Shelley, a mentally ill woman now in her late 30s. Shelley has been diagnosed with cancer, and her parents have enlisted her brother and sister to keep this information from Shelley in the fear that it might cause another suicide attempt. With an empathetic doctor who hasn’t asked the question — who has the right to make Shelley’s treatment decisions? — the family has some difficult choices to make, as well as secrets to keep.
Two friends meet in the park during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and — masked and socially distant — find themselves transfixed by an unusual family that may or may not be real.
"What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open." — Muriel Rukeyser
American Woman tells the story of four women — Hannah, Ellie, Moon and Claire; two white women and two women of color — coming of age in the latter 20th and early 21st centuries. In the spirit of The Heidi Chronicles and spanning three decades, the play depicts the women's relationships and what it's like to grow up female in the years leading up to the Me Too and Times Up era. American Woman speaks to the hidden realities and secret languages girls learn and women ultimately speak and live with in every aspect of their lives.
Based on true events during 2011's Hurricane Irene, The Generator tackles the recent "neighbor wars" phenomenon—unexpectedly violent conflicts sparked by minor sources like noisy power generators. The play addresses America's polarized social and political climate and asks the question: are we in this together, or is it every man for himself?
The Merger tells the harrowing (and increasingly familiar) story of a family-owned business, newly acquired by a private equity firm, and the mayhem—and suspense—that ensues. Gone are the days when entrepreneurs started businesses to grow and hand down to their children or sell before retirement. Today, the trend is to flip businesses as soon as possible, for maximum profit and to the advantage of a handful of investors, often at the expense of the workers.
Travels With Mohamed dramatizes a once-in-a-lifetime road trip through Morocco, from Marrakesh to the Sahara Desert to Fez and Casablanca. Can American women and Muslim men from these very different—and mutually suspicious—cultures find common ground and friendship, let alone fall in love?
Successes
ALL THE LONELY WOMEN
June 2 - 4, 2022
Co-written with director Ines Braun, the play premiered at Rattlestick Theater's Global Forms Theater Festival in New York City. "All the Lonely Women" is a queer fairytale about the strangeness of looking for love during the pandemic. Infused with magical realism, the play explores the poignancy — and inevitable humor— of love and longing during a time of isolation and separation.
ALL THE LONELY WOMEN
June 2 - 4, 2022
Co-written with director Ines Braun, the play premiered at Rattlestick Theater's Global Forms Theater Festival in New York City
CLASSIC SIX
2022
Finalist: Premiere Stages Playwriting Festival
2021
Finalist: Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference
Semifinalist: Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition
Winner: Founder's Choice Award at the Powerstories Voices of Truth Festival
TOO CLOSE TO HOME
Aug. 26 - 28, 2022 (upcoming)
Page to Stage at Curtis Theatre Play Festival in Brea, CA
2018
Semifinalist: Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference