Theatre News

Women’s Prize for Playwriting reveals 2025 longlist

It has been a record year!

| Nationwide |

17 October 2025

The Women’s Prize for Playwriting has revealed the longlisted scripts for its 2025 submissions.

Out of 1275 submissions (a record for the Prize since launching in 2019), 41 pieces have been chosen. The playwrights will receive one-on-one dramaturgical support, writing workshops, and a Futures Day of industry-focused sessions early next year, from Future Light, a new talent development launched by the Women’s Prize for Playwrighting.

This year’s winner will be decided by a judging panel chaired by the director of the National Theatre, Indhu Rubasingham, and will be announced at a ceremony in London in February 2026.

The judging panel also includes literary and development associate at Wessex Grove, Kat Pierce, directors Milli Bhatia and Alice Hamilton, actress Romola Garai, literary agent Mel Kenyon, artistic director of Bristol Old Vic Nancy Medina, the National Theatre’s director of new work Nina Steiger, playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, and Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner.

The Prize is awarded to a full-length play – defined as over 60 minutes in duration – written in English. The winner will receive £20,000 in respect of an option for Ellie Keel Productions, Paines Plough, and Sheffield Theatres to co-produce the play. The prize is sponsored by Samuel French Ltd, a Concord Theatricals company, the official publishing partner of the prize.

Previous winners include Amy Trigg for Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me, Ahlam for You Bury Me, and Karis Kelly for Consumed. The most recent winner, Sarah Grochala for Intelligence, is currently in development with Paines Plough and Ellie Keel Productions.

Ellie Keel, founder director of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting and Charlie Coulthard, literary manager of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting, said, “These 41 exceptional plays represent the top 3 per cent of a record-breaking 1,275 submissions — our highest number to date. We are deeply impressed by their extraordinary range, level of craft, and ambitious scope, which reflect the remarkable talent within this year’s cohort.

“We’re also thrilled to announce Future Light, a new talent development programme supported by Arts Council England. Designed to support the writers on our longlist, Future Light marks a significant step forward in WPP’s commitment to fostering excellence and expanding opportunities for female and non-binary writers for the stage in the UK and Ireland.”

Katie Posner, joint artistic director of Paines Plough, added, “It has been an amazing, record-breaking year of submissions to the Women’s Prize for Playwriting, and we’ve read stories that have travelled the world and taken in a breathtaking range of human experience. It’s a joy to have read and advocated for these long-listed writers, and we can’t wait to keep these writers close as we invite them to join the exciting Future Light scheme.”

The longlist in full is:

Wold Meteor by Kate Attwell

Weeping Woman by Ellen Bannerman

The Fingerprint Bureau by Sonali Bhattacharyya

while we burn by Olga Braga

An Effigy Burning in the Arctic by Mareth Burns

HIDE AND SEEK WITH JIMMY LING by Naomi Sumner Chan

Ordinary Time by Evie Chandler

I LOVE STRANGERS by Nurit Chinn

Hefted by Eireann Devlin

Sapling by Georgina Duncan

THE (YELLOW) WALLPAPER by Phoebe Eclair-Powell