Biography
Zakiya Young is an accomplished actress, singer and playwright. In August of 2022, she was honored to participate in the Ojai Playwrights Conference New Works Festival as both playwright and actress as she explored her suburban roots amid Black Lives Matter protests in her autobiographical solo show Suburban Black Girl. Zakiya continued developing Suburban Black Girl in the DNA reading series at Tony award-winning regional theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, and is excited to share this important and timely show with audiences across the country.
Zakiya moves effortlessly between playwriting, television, voiceover, musicals and plays. Her most notable onscreen role thus far is Corey Bryant, Faran’s toxic dance mom, in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin and Pretty Little Liars: Summer School on HBO Max. She followed this with a recurring role in the hilarious comedy-drama series Diarra From Detroit on BET + as Rolexxx, one of the famed Detroit Flamingos from Eden’s Ethiopia. You may also recognize her as Layla, Janae Watson’s conservative Muslim mother on Orange Is The New Black. Zakiya just wrapped a leading role in the short film Will, which is slated to hit festival circuits in 2025.
Her Broadway career began when she was cast in the Original Broadway Cast of The Little Mermaid from an Equity Principal Audition. Zakiya’s next Original Broadway Cast booking was the play Stick Fly, starring Dulé Hill, Mekhi Phifer, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Tracie Thoms and Condola Rashad, where she was the offstage understudy for both Tracie and Condola. The show was written by Lydia Diamond, directed by Kenny Leon and produced by Alicia Keys. Zakiya had a principal role in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular and lived out a childhood dream of dancing with the world-renowned Radio City Rockettes in their video game sequence. She also received an Audelco Award nomination for her starring role in the Off-Broadway musical, Storyville. Other favorite theatre credits include Jory in Disgraced (Goodman Theatre/Berkely Repertory Theatre/Seattle Rep), Kate in Good People (George Street Playhouse, Seattle Rep), Tendi in Familiar (Old Globe), all the leading ladies in Spamilton (Kirk Douglas Theatre), Miss California in Little Miss Sunshine (La Jolla Playhouse) and Lois Lane in It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman (Dallas Theatre Center). Zakiya is the only known Black actress to play the role of Lois Lane in any Superman project.
Zakiya was the vocalist for LA Philharmonic’s Beverly Hills Songbook series in a collaboration with esteemed musician, friend and fellow educator Doug Peck. Her background vocals can be heard on the Original Broadway Cast Recording of The Little Mermaid, the album Map of the Soul:7, by pop mega group BTS, 5 to 9 by music icon Dolly Parton and songs by rock singer Gabriella Valdes and opera singer Radmila Lolly. Zakiya’s voice can also be heard as Sakhmet in Asgard’s Wrath 2, Ruby in Little Demon (FX), Lenora in Pokémon Masters (English dub) and numerous other video games, commercials, audiobooks and animated projects.
Zakiya holds a B.A. in Communication from the University of Pittsburgh with minors in Acting, Women’s Studies and Africana Studies. She has taught classes in various disciplines of musical theatre at Stella Adler’s Art of Acting Studio, Hussian College, Studio School, Relativity School, AMDA and was a frequent coach and mentor with The Broadway Collective.