Bio

Featured in Variety’s “100 Writers to Watch” (2015), Nayna is a former NYC analyst, a former DC policy writer, a former SF international aid director, and a former touring dancer.  Her plays have been staged and produced in numerous cities including: New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago. She is the recipient of an East West playwright scholarship  and a Moving Arts Theater playwright fellowship. In 2017, Nayna was a semi-finalist or finalist with the O’Neill Conference, PlayPenn, Screenwriters Colony and Harold Clurman playwright-in-residence program. In 2018, Nayna was a semi-finalist with the WB TV Writers’ Program, a Sesame Street Writers Room fellow, a Notable Writer with the New York Television Festival  and a Kenyon Conference full-scholarship recipient. She recently penned her first TV episode for an upcoming Netflix animated series, a Disney Jr. animated series, and has been awarded a development deal with Sesame Street. This year, she has been a staff writer on ABC’s new show “The Baker and The Beauty” and is commissioned by LA-based Antaeus Theater Company to write a play as part of their Zip Code Series.

Born in Florida, raised in Virginia, and originally from India, Nayna has studied five languages, visited 22 countries, and worked in four industries. She received her BS in Economics and English at the University of Virginia, and her MFA at Northwestern University.

She suffers from Asian Girl Guilt Syndrome, Law&Order SVU rerun marathon binges (from which she has developed restless leg syndrome) and a tendency to misspell the word “syndrome.”