Naomi lizuka

(Bio as of October 2026)

Naomi lizuka is a California-based playwright and the 2024-2025 winner of the Hermitage Major Theater Award. Her plays include Anon(ymous), 36 Views, Polaroid Stories, At the Vanishing Point, Language of Angels, Skin, Tattoo Girl, Aloha Say the Pretty Girls, Citizen 13559, Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West, and Sleep (in collaboration with RipeTime). Her plays have been produced at theaters across the country including BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Berkeley Rep, the Goodman, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie, Cornerstone, Children’s Theater Company, the Public Theater, and Campo Santo. lizuka is an alumna of New Dramatists and the recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Award, an Alpert Award, a Whiting Award, a Stavis Award from the National Theatre Conference, a Joyce Foundation Award, and a Hodder Fellowship. She was a Berlind Playwright-in-Residence at Princeton University. In television, Iizuka has written for “The Terror: Infamy” (AMC), “Tokyo Vice” (HBO Max), “Bosch: Legacy” (Amazon), and “The Sympathizer” (HBO Max). Iizuka heads the MFA Playwriting program at UC San Diego, where she is continually inspired by the next generation of playwrights.