The Leah Ryan Fund Announces The 2025 Winner Of The Leah

The Leah Ryan Fund has announced the winner of the 2025 Leah Prize, Amalia Oliva Rojas's In The Bronx Brown Girls Can See Stars Too (or The F*ck Is You Lookin' At?) In Rojas's play four young girls are forced to take a communication workshop in the hopes of avoiding juvie.

As they play games and learn about themselves with the help of teaching artists, one of the girls is approached by the local gang leader to prove herself or lose her home. The girls must confront their past, present, and future to determine who they want to be, all while finding community and liberation in each other. The play will have a public reading Saturday, June 28th, as part of the Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College (June 20th to July 27th) on their campus in Poughkeepsie, NY.

The Leah Ryan Fund also awards honorable mention citations to Alex Lin's barren, Gloria Oladipo's The Care and Keeping of Schizophrenia (and Other Demons), and Christina Pumariega's LABOR.

The finalists for this year's award are Rebs Chan, Lisa Sanaye Dring, Madeline Easley, Gabi Giron-Vives, a.k. Payne, Nia Akilah Robinson, Nandita Shenoy, Kelundra Smith, and Maria Smith. 

“Each year, it's always a privilege and an honor to remember Leah Ryan. Amalia, in particular, truly embodies the spirit of Leah, a woman who strove each day to achieve her dream of being a writer.  Amalia's theatrical voice is a welcome addition to our growing list of winners," said board member Ed Cheetham.

“I wrote Bronx Girls as a love letter to all the young black and brown girls who have been told by the world that their dreams are not plausible. Young girls who have been adultified by society, forced to pause their youth in order to navigate adulthood. Especially young girls who are justice involved and deserve proper rehabilitation. This play is a story of girlhood, redemption and most importantly, resilience. It is an honor to receive the 2025 Leah prize,” Rojas said.

Amalia Oliva Rojas is a Mexican poet, performer, and theatre artivist raised in Nueva York. Her work centers and archives the stories, myths, and legends told by her family, Women of Color and the New York immigrant community. Her plays include Tonantzin On the 7 Train (Pen America), A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Succeed in the Myth-Making Business (Lehman College, Jamaica Arts and Learning Center), How to Melt ICE (or How the Coyote Fell in Love with the Lizard Who Was Really a Butterfly) (New York Women's Fund Grant, New Perspectives Theatre Company and Boundless Theater Company, Latin American Theater Award for Outstanding Playwriting), and In The Bronx Brown Girls Can See Stars Too (Egg & Spoon Incubate NYC, KCACTF Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and the Darrell Ayers National Playwriting Award).  Recent Fellowships: Culture and Narrative Fellow for The Opportunity Agenda, The Lily's Lorraine Hansberry Fellow, CUNY Mexican Studies Institute Lydia Mendoza Fellow. MFA, Columbia University. 

About the Leah Ryan Fund

The Leah Ryan Fund began giving out The Leah in 2010 to honor the memory of Leah Ryan, and to encourage and support the work of brilliant and unrecognized women, trans, and non-binary playwrights. It is the purpose of the prize to perpetuate the integrity, compassion, and creativity that Leah herself possessed and inspired in others.

Winners of The Leah playwriting prize receive a $5,000 cash award and a public reading and summer workshop as part of the Powerhouse Theater Program at Vassar College. As hoped, the prize has been a springboard for winners who have subsequently won other competitions, have received full-staged productions of their work, and/or have gone on to successful careers in theater, TV, and film. https://leahryanfund.org