Alayna Jacqueline Barnes
Alayna Jacqueline is a Minneapolis-based playwright, dramaturg, and educator born and raised in Buckeye Nation (Columbus, Ohio). She’s an instigator for new plays with the Twin Cities Playwright Cabal. In her absurd experimental writing, she loves finding new ways to bend, reshape, and deconstruct stories for the stage. Her writing weaves between themes of identity, mental health, women’s relationships, privilege, and the corruption of power. Alayna’s work has been performed and/or developed at Theater Mu (MN), Phoenix Theater (MN), Market Garden Theatre (MN), Renaissance Theaterworks (WI), Playwrights’ Center (MN), MadLab Theater (OH), Lincoln Theater (OH), Pythian Theater (OH), and Haybarn Theater (VT). Her play ALL OF THE EVERYTHING was produced at the 2019 Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. Later that year, she completed a writing residency at the William Inge Center. Her play with music, THE RETELLING, was performed in the Twin Cities’ 2020 Horrorfest. Lakeshore Players Theatre commissioned Alayna to write AN EVENING WITH ELLA AND HAROLD, with performances throughout this past February. Her latest commission, FOSTERING RESENTMENT, had a staged reading in Daleko Arts’ first Cesta Festival in New Prague, MN. She earned her BA in theater from Otterbein University and her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College.