As an actress, Najla has performed Off-Broadway, regionally and internationally, as well as in film and television. Favorite theatre credits include Heather Raffo’s Nine Parts of Desire (Seattle Rep), the London and New York premieres of Karen Malpede’s Prophecy, and Naomi Wallace’s The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East (Central Square Theater). In April 2010, Najla completed an eight-week Off-Broadway run of her solo show, Palestine. That same year, she was named one of “Forty Feminists Under Forty” by The Feminist Press. Since her off-broadway run ended, Najla has performed “Palestine” in over 25 high schools, colleges, and universities around the country and the world.

 

Najla is one of New York Theatre Workshop’s “Usual Suspects,” and has also worked at the Public, The Cherry Lane, New Dramatists, The Lark, and Second Stage, among others.

 

In 2012, she collaborated with Vanessa Redgrave on "A World I Loved," based on her grandmother's memoir, which premiered at The Brighton Festival in the UK, and The Miller Theatre in collaboration with The Public Theatre in New York.

 

In the spring of 2014 Najla's play The Assumption of Mary was featured as one of the 48 plays in The Mysteries at The Flea Theatre.

 

In October 2016, her libretto for Mahmoud Fairouz's Oratorio, "Zabur" was performed at Carnegie Hall, and in 2018 the composer David Robert Coleman used some of the text from “Palestine” to create a musical piece that was performed by the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Daniel Barenboim, on their European tour. The piece premiered in Aarhus, Denmark, and was also performed at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London , and the Salzburg and Lucerne Festivals.

 

Najla also recently guest starred on NCIS: New Orleans (CBS-TV.)