The prestigious awards celebrating the work of women+ playwrights will announce the winner at a ceremony at the Royal Court Theatre on the 11th March.
The Susan Smith Blackburn prize has confirmed the 10 finalists, selected from over 200 submitted plays, for the playwriting award which acknowledges women+ writers for plays of outstanding quality written for the English-speaking theatre.
These 10 finalists are: Roxy Cook for A Woman Walks into a Bank, April De Angelis for The Divine Mrs S , Justice Hehir for The Dowagers, Rhianna Ilube for Samuel Takes a Break…,In Male Dungeon No.5 After a Long But Generally Successful Day of Tours, Jasmine Naziha Jones for Baghdaddy , Alex Lin for Chinese Republicans, Lenelle Moïse for K-I-S-S-I-N-G, Hannah Moscovitch for Red Like Fruit a.k. payne for Love I Awethu Further and Ava Pickett for 1536.
The winner of this year’s prize will be announced on the 11th March at the Royal Court, with the winner being awarded $25,000 and also receive a signed and numbered print by renowned artist Willem de Kooning, created especially for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. A Special Commendation of $10,000 may be given at the discretion of the judges, and each Finalist will receive $5,000. Previous winners of the award include: Annie Baker, Julia Cho, Caryl Churchill, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Katori Hall, Lucy Kirkwood, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, Dael Orlandersmith, Lucy Prebble, Wendy Wasserstein, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Cheryl West.
Talking about the news, Prize Executive Director, Leslie Swackhamer said: “We are thrilled to present the Prize at the Royal Court, a theatre with an incredible history of developing and producing brilliant new plays by women. . This year’s finalists include three debut plays, and six playwrights who are new to our family of playwrights. Two playwrights were honored as finalists early in their careers, and have gone on to have brilliant careers. This is a vigorous and vital cohort, and we can’t wait to celebrate and honor their work.”
Those on this year’s judging panel include: Inua Ellams (UK award-winning poet, playwright and curator), Sarah Mantell (US playwright, winner of the 2023 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot) April Matthis (US Obie-Award winning actor), Clare Perkins- (UK star of stage and screen), Eric Ting (US Obie-Award winning director) and Lyndsey Turner (UK Olivier-Winning director of stage and film).
The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize honors the late American actor, feminist and writer Susan Smith Blackburn who lived in London during the last 15 years of her life. Since being founded in 1978, the prize has honoured over 500 plays as Finalists of the Prize, with many going on to achieve other top honours such as Olivier, Lilly, Evening Standard and Tony Awards for Best Play. To date, eleven Susan Smith Blackburn Finalist playwrights have subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
To find out more about the prize and this year’s finalists visit: https://www.blackburnprize.org/