Leyla DeMolina is a Brooklyn-based theater artist, writer, and pie-maker originally from Queens, NY. Currently delighting in figs, orange slices, interdisciplinary world building, and sensory magic. Leyla holds a Theater and English degree from Brown University. Recent acting work includes Time’s Up by Kenneth Keng, a time loop rom-com about immigration in Chain Theater’s 2024 One Act Festival; playwright/performer of Mnemosyne, an original piece on memory, identity, and loss which was workshopped in June of 2024 at the Producer’s Club; Lulu in Stage Partners’ outdoor immersive project Off the Trail with Squeak and Squawk;  and Exit Plan, a devised “SpeakArt” performance with the Underground Skills Exchange.

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Leyla has trained in Shakespeare, Viewpoints Technique, Alexander Technique, Voice and Speech, and Contemporary Dance. She studied Directing for five months  at Dublin’s Trinity College. In New York, Leyla has received training with SoHo Shakespeare Company, Fiasco Theater, Third Rail Projects, and the Underground Skills Exchange.  Previous productions include In the Heights with Brown’s Sock & Buskin; Lady Macbeth in Macbeth with Brown's Shakespeare on the Green; and starring in a short film called Sometimes I Want to Cut Off My Hands which was selected and awarded by ARMS (Art to Reduce Mental Health Stigma) for their Flip the Script festival. Leyla has also worked as an Assistant Stage Manager with Third Rail Projects’ long running immersive production Then She Fell, managed a 10 day musical development workshop in the woods, and worked with the Manhattan School of Music as an Assistant Stage Manager. She wrote an Honors thesis at Brown on the women of Shakespeare's tragedies and devised a collaborative piece based on it called Last Rites/First Light. Leyla is also a dancer and appeared in a 25 minute piece by choreographer Nia Sanders called Where Do I Go From Here? 

 

Leyla writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Forever excited about new storytelling forms, she created and co-wrote the mysterious audio adventure Whisper Bits about mothers, archives, and prophecy. Leyla has also served as the Literary Chair of the Brown Theater Department’s Sock & Buskin producing board. Additionally, she has spent time working as a summer music and theater teacher for kids aged 2-14, writing and directing an original youth musical theater production which she helped them stage all by themselves! 

Leyla has writing published in the Institute of Art and Olfactions's first volume of their journal Alabastron - The Scent of Identity. And in the NYBR newsletter Ahora Sí.
She is the companion of a cat named Paloma, a collector of rocks and big sticks, and the tender of many many plants.