FINALISTS ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2025-2026 SUSAN SMITH BLACKBURN PRIZE
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
THE
SUSAN SMITH
BLACKBURN PRIZE
PRESTIGIOUS INTERNATIONAL AWARD
FOR
WOMEN+ PLAYWRIGHTS
ANNOUNCES 2025-26 FINALISTS
Pictured: Barbara Bergin, Hannah Doran, Amy Jephta, Frances Poet, Ro Reddick, Jasmine Sharma, Jen Silverman, DeLanna Studi, Else Went, and Bess Wohl
Download composite here.
London/New York (November 24, 2025) – The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize today announces this year’s finalists for the prestigious international playwriting award – in an exclusive video by Pedro Pascal – the largest and oldest award recognizing women+ writers for plays of outstanding quality written for the English-speaking theatre. For nearly fifty years, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has recognized the most visionary women+ writing for the stage—artists whose voices have defined and redefined contemporary theatre. Past Winners of the Prize include Annie Baker, Alice Birch, Benedict Lombe, Julia Cho, Caryl Churchill, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Katori Hall, Lucy Kirkwood, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, Dael Orlandersmith, Lucy Prebble, Sarah Ruhl, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein and Timberlake Wertenbaker.
Since 1978, over 500 plays have been honored as Finalists of the Prize and many have gone on to receive top honors, including Olivier, Lilly, Evening Standard and Tony Awards for Best Play. Eleven Susan Smith Blackburn Finalist playwrights have subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The Prize results in more productions of plays by women+ writers and fosters the interchange of plays between the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other English-speaking countries.
The Finalists for the 48th Annual Susan Smith Blackburn Prize are:
Barbara Bergin (Ireland) Dublin Gothic
Hannah Doran (UK/Ireland) Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights
Amy Jephta (South Africa) A Good House
Frances Poet (UK) Small Acts of Love
Ro Reddick (US) Cold War Choir Practice
Jasmine Sharma (US) Pigeonhole
Jen Silverman (US) Regressions
DeLanna Studi (Cherokee Nation) “I” is for Invisible
Else Went (US) Initiative
Bess Wohl (US) Liberation
This February 26th, The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize will announce the Winner of the 48th Annual Prize at the Royal Court Theatre in London with a special presentation and celebration attended by writers, actors, supporters, artistic directors and theatre artists. The Winner will be awarded $25,000 and will also receive a signed 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.
ABOUT THE FINALIST PLAYS:
A Good House by Amy Jephta (South Africa) submitted by the Royal Court Theatre (London)
In the quaint suburban community of Stillwater, a mysterious shack springs up from the dust with the inhabitants nowhere to be seen. As speculation abounds, new residents Sihle and Bonolo are recruited by their neighborhood to be the face of a campaign to demolish the shack. A biting satire and explosive exploration of race, resentment and community politics, about a couple who discover the limits of good neighborliness and what is required to fit in. A Good House was co-commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre with the Fugard Theatre (South Africa) and premiered in January 2025 at the Royal Court in a co-production with the Bristol Old Vic in association with the Market Theatre (Johannesburg).
Upcoming Productions: Playhouse Teater (Stockholm); The Market Theatre (Johannesburg); Ensemble Theatre (Sydney); Burgteater (Austria).
https://www.blackburnprize.org/year/2026_/good-house/
Cold War Choir Practice by Ro Reddick (US) submitted by Clubbed Thumb (New York City)
A young girl is embroiled in intrigue when her estranged uncle, a prominent Black conservative, brings his mysteriously ill wife home for the holidays. Cold War Practice is a fugue of Reaganomics, espionage, roller disco, cults… and choir practice. Cold War Choir Practice (NYT Critic’s Pick, dir. Knud Adams), premiered in Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks 2025, co-produced by Page 73.
This production will be remounted at MCC Theater in a co-production with Clubbed Thumb and Page 73 in March 2026. Cold War Choir Practice was also produced in September 2025 at Trinity Repertory Company (dir. Aileen Wen McGroddy).
https://www.blackburnprize.org/year/2026_/cold-war-choir-practice/
Dublin Gothic by Barbara Bergin (Ireland) submitted by the Abbey Theatre (Dublin)
Dublin Gothic is an epic and myth-busting tragicomedy set in one Dublin house over a century of social upheaval. Generations of losers tumble through time, struggling against the villain of circumstance to create a shadow history of a city both strange and familiar. An ensemble of 17 actors creates more than a hundred unforgettable characters that will dance through time as they celebrate the glory and grime of Dublin.
Workshopped at Abbey Theatre May 2022. World Premiere November 27th, 2025- January 31st, 2026, Abbey Theatre.
https://www.blackburnprize.org/year/2026_/dublin-gothic/
“I” is for Invisible by DeLanna Studi (Cherokee Nation) submitted by the New Harmony Project (Indiana)
“I” is for Invisible follows one family’s urgent search for their missing loved one amid the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, confronting apathetic law enforcement and a system built to overlook them. Interwoven with Cherokee cosmology, this mysterious thriller explores grief, hope, and the fight for visibility, justice, and healing.
Workshops and readings are scheduled for April 2026 as part of PlayFest Indy (the New Harmony Project). The Native Theatre Project will have a workshop and reading on May 5, the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/ Relatives.
https://www.blackburnprize.org/year/2026_/i-is-for-invisible/
Initiative by Else Went (US) submitted by The Public Theater (New York City)
A bittersweet reflection on adolescence at the dawn of the new millennium, Initiative charts the intertwined lives of seven teens from 2000-2004, as they become friends and more than friends, wrestle with their potential, face incalculable loss, and struggle to find their way in (and get out of) “Coastal Podunk, California”.
Initiative is currently receiving its premiere at the Public Theatre.
https://www.blackburnprize.org/year/2026_/initiative/
Liberation by Bess Wohl (US) submitted by Roundabout Theatre Company (New York City)
1970s, Ohio. Lizzie gathers a group of women to talk about changing their lives, and the world. What follows is a necessary, messy, and bitingly funny exploration of what it means to be free, and to be a woman. In Liberation, Lizzie’s daughter steps into her mother’s memory—into the unfinished revolution she once helped ignite—and searches the past to find the answer for herself.
Premiered in winter of 2025 at the Roundabout Theatre Company in the Laura Pels Theatre. Currently on Broadway at the James Earl Jones Theatre.
https://www.blackburnprize.org/year/2026_/liberation/
Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights by Hannah Doran (UK-Ireland) submitted by Papatango Theatre Company (London)
T is the new summer hire at Cafarelli & Sons, an iconic New York butcher, but life in a freezing cut room is far from glamorous. No-nonsense boss Paula is fighting to keep her business alive. Apprentices JD and Billy find themselves pitted against each other as her number two David watches on. How far will they go to survive? The Meat Kings! (Inc.) carves into the dark underbelly of America’s anti-immigration policies and the brutal sacrifices people make in the pursuit of prosperity. This searing debut play won the 2024 Papatango Prize.
Premiere production currently running at the Park Theatre (London) through November 29.
https://www.blackburnprize.org/year/2026_/meat-kings-inc-of-brooklyn-heights/
Pigeonhole by Jasmine Sharma (US) submitted by Center Theatre Group (Los Angeles)
Pigeonhole follows Kaaya and Dev, who have little in common except their childhood home in New Jersey. Over fifty years, on the holiday of Raksha Bandhan (Rakhi), two siblings—portrayed by six actors—grapple with their shared past, unfolding alongside them in real time. Ultimately, this sonic play is about a family trying to repaint their haunted house as a home.
Commissioned by Center Theatre Group in their 2023-2024 L.A. Writers’ Workshop.
https://www.blackburnprize.org/year/2026_/pigeonhole/
Regressions by Jen Silverman (US) submitted by Playful Productions (London)
David can’t figure out why his life is falling apart… so he goes to see Nora, who gives past life regressions. When David discovers Nora in all his past lives – in increasingly dangerous ways – both must ask themselves whether they’re on a collision course to either escape the past, or re-live it. A play about belief, epigenetics, how we try to know ourselves, and what happens when our histories collide.
https://www.blackburnprize.org/year/2026_/regressions/
Small Acts of Love by Frances Poet (UK) submitted by Citizens Theatre (Glasgow)
Small Acts of Love is a compelling, true story, based on meticulous research, about the acts of kindness carried out by the people of Lockerbie in the wake of the Pan Am 103 atrocity in December 1988. Brought together in extreme adversity, two distant communities from Scotland and America forged bonds of friendship that endure thirty years on. The play, with original songs written by Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue, memorializes those who were lost and celebrates the friendship, compassion and humanity that rose from the ashes.
Small Acts of Love premiered at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow in September 2025 in a Citizens Theatre Production in association with National Theatre of Scotland.
https://www.blackburnprize.org/year/2026_/small-acts-of-love/
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS
Barbara Bergin (she/her) is a writer and actor from Dublin, Ireland. She trained as an actor at the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College Dublin. Along with her acting career Barbara has written for Screen, Audio and Theatre. Writing credits include Love is the Drug and The Clinic (RTÉ Television), and she created On the Couch (TV3) a 6-part tragicomedy, co-written with Gary Cooke, which she also directed. Plays include The Bulletin (The National Archives UK), 14 Voices from the Bloodied Field and Dublin Gothic for The Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s national theatre. Barbara has also worked as an artist in the community over many years creating and facilitating work from cross-border peace initiatives to creative writing in prisons. She is the recipient of an Irish Times Irish Theatre award, an Irish Film and Television award, a Markievicz award from The Arts Council of Ireland and a Commemoration Bursary from the Abbey Theatre.
Hannah Doran (she/her) is a British-Irish playwright and screenwriter whose work has been developed and workshopped in the UK, USA and Australia. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights is Hannah’s debut play. It won the 2024 Papatango Prize and received its world premiere production at London’s Park Theatre in 2025. She was selected for the National MFA Playwrights’ Festival in 2017 with her short play A Last Night on Earth, which was produced by Theater Masters in Aspen, Colorado, and subsequently Off-Off-Broadway at Theater for the New City. Based in London, Hannah is a bookseller and a member of the National Theatre’s script reading team.
Amy Jephta (she/her) is a South African playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker based in Cape Town and working internationally. She was named one of the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Top Young South Africans and is a recipient of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, South Africa’s highest artistic honour. Her theatre work includes Free Falling Bird (Bush Theatre), This Liquid Earth (Edinburgh International Festival/Royal Court Theatre), All Who Pass (Grahamstown National Arts Festival), and Shoes (directed by Danny Boyle for The Children’s Monologues at Carnegie Hall, starring James McAvoy). Her plays have been staged at Jermyn Street Theatre, Theatre503, Hightide, Afrovibes, Riksteatern (Sweden), The Fugard Theatre, and festivals worldwide. In January 2025, she returned to the Royal Court for the critically acclaimed world premiere of her provocative social satire A Good House, directed by Nancy Medina in association with Bristol Old Vic and the Market Theatre. As a screenwriter, Jephta’s debut directorial feature Barakat was selected as South Africa’s 2022 Oscar submission for Best International Feature. Her film Ellen: The Ellen Pakkies Story was South Africa’s official Golden Globes Best Foreign Film entry. In television, she has served as head writer on crime-drama Catch Me A Killer and written for Amazon Studios, iTV, Fremantle, Netflix, Paramount, and Federation Studios. A committed mentor, Amy co-founded the African Women Playwrights Network, chaired Women Playwrights International, and serves on the advisory board for CASA, the Canadian-South African Playwriting Award. She is an alumna of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment Impact Lab.
Frances Poet (she/her) is a Glasgow based writer of stage, screen and radio. Small Acts of Love reopened the newly renovated Citizens Theatre in Glasgow (2025) to rapturous reviews. Other plays include Fruitcake (Tron Theatre), There Is No Room In Our Bathroom For Lewis Capaldi (PACE at Paisley Arts Centre), Sense and Sensibility (Pitlochry Festival Theatre and OVO, St Albans), Still (Traverse Theatre), Maggie May (Leeds Playhouse/Queens Theatre Hornchurch/Leicester Curve, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist), Fibres (Citizens Theatre/Stella Quines tour), Gut (Traverse Theatre/Tron Theatre, Writers’ Guild Best Play Award 2019) and the multi-award winning Adam (National Theatre of Scotland tour, Fringe First, The Flying Artichoke Award and, on screen, winner of BAFTA Scotland Best Television Scripted 2020 and Audience Award for Best Film at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival). Frances’s new play, Stand & Deliver: The Lee Jeans Sit-In will tour Scotland in Spring 2026 in a National Theatre of Scotland/Tron Theatre co-production.
Ro Reddick (she/her) is a queer Black playwright and songwriter. She writes off-kilter comedies; the theme songs to your late capitalist nightmares. Ro is the 2025-2026 recipient of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and an artist-in-residence at the Vineyard Theatre. Her play Cold War Choir Practice (NYT Critic’s Pick, dir. Knud Adams), premiered in Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks 2025, co-produced by Page 73. This production will be remounted at MCC Theater in a co-production with Clubbed Thumb and Page 73 in March 2026. Cold War Choir Practice was also produced in September 2025 at Trinity Repertory Company (dir. Aileen Wen McGroddy). Ro is an alum of the Page 73 Writers Group, the PWC Core Apprentice Program, and the DGF Playwriting Fellowship. She is under commission at People’s Light Theatre and her plays have been developed with Clubbed Thumb, Page 73, Trinity Rep, The Ground Floor (Berkeley Rep), Bushwick Starr Reading Series, and Williamstown Theatre Festival (NYC Reading, dir. Jamario Stills). Ro has an MFA in Playwriting from Brown University and an MBA from NYU, which she has no intention of using.
Jasmine Sharma (she/her) is a South Asian-American performer/writer/activist. She aims to focus her work at the intersection of race/femininity/Americanness. Currently a Core Member of The Kilroys, a Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, Jasmine recently accepted a residency with Colt Coeur. Full lengths plays include Pigeonhole (in development, Center Theatre Group commission) PEACHY: A Sorta Chekhovian Traumedy (developed with IAMA Theatre Company, taught/produced at Yale University, NPC Finalist), The Jazmines: a rage play – and for legal reasons, a parody (NPC Finalist), Radial Gradient (World Premiere at Shattered Globe Theatre, Kilroys Web 2023), among others. Jasmine’s writing has been seen on stages at The Goodman, The Kirk Douglas, Jackalope Theatre Company, The Brick, The Flea, and The Valdez Theatre Conference in Alaska.
Jasmine was a 2022-2023 Reel Sisters Fellow, and wrote “CCC: Conflicted Cuties of Color”. She has written essays for @i_weigh (now known as @moveforyourmind), spoken at Yale, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Harvard Club of NY, and led workshops for Boston Conservatory, Echo Writes and PWC. Northwestern University.
Jen Silverman (they/them) is a playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. Recent productions include Creditors (TOGETHER x Audible/Sonia Friedman), the Broadway premiere of The Roommate (starring Mia Farrow & Patti LuPone) and Spain(Second Stage). Other plays include: Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (MCC), Witch (Geffen Playhouse) and The Moors (Playwrights Realm, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist). Jen’s work has been produced widely across the United States (Steppenwolf, The Goodman, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Huntington, Writers Theatre, etc.), and internationally in Australia, the UK, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Spain, and elsewhere. Books include: We Play Ourselves, The Island Dwellers, and There’s Going to be Trouble (Random House). Their essays have been published in The New York Times, The Paris Review, Vogue, and elsewhere. Silverman has written on Tales of the City for Netflix and was a writer-producer on Tokyo Vice (HBO Max). They are a three-time MacDowell Fellow, a New Dramatists alum, and a Scholar of Note at the American Library in Paris. Honors include fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim.
DeLanna Studi (she/hers) is a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation and the Artistic Director of Native Voices, the only Equity theater dedicated to Native playwrights. A 2022 United States Artists Fellow and recipient of the Advance Gender Equity in the Arts Legacy Playwright Award, her accolades include the Butcher Scholar Award and support from the Doris Duke Performing Artist Fund. Her debut play, And So We Walked, based on retracing her family’s footsteps along the Trail of Tears, premiered Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane and was recorded for Audible. Additional works include “I” is for Invisible, Capax Infiniti, Before America Was America, Wolves, Flight, and Project Golda. She has contributed essays to contributions to Indigenizing Spaces and B.A. Van Sise’s On the National Language: The Poetry of America’s Endangered Tongues. As an actor, her credits include the first national tour of Broadway’s August: Osage County, Off-Broadway’s Gloria: A Life, and roles in Reservation Dogs, Disney’s The Roof, and the Peabody award winning Edge of America. She is the current Playwright in Residence at Geva Theatre and has led workshops and residencies across universities, museums, and festivals nationwide.
Else Went (she/herself) is the current Tow Foundation Resident Playwright at The Public Theater, and has had work developed through writing labs and groups at The Public Theatre (EWG), Ars Nova (Play Group), WP (Lab), Playwrights Realm (Fellowship), Trans Theatre Lab, and Bechdel Project (FifE Fellow). Recipient of new work commissions from MTC Sloan Foundation, South Coast Repertory, Atlantic Theater Company, and Breaking the Binary Festival, among others. She has been in residence with MacDowell, The Mercury Store, Stillwright, and Barn Arts Collective. Further developmental support from Playwrights Horizons, NYTW, Mercury Store, The Tank, The Brick, and ISC. Recipient of a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation Award (An Oxford Man); Finalist for Princess Grace Award (Degenerates), 2023 Jerome Hill Artist (Jerome Foundation), Shakes. New Contemps. (Whate’er), and the Carlo Anoni Prize (An Oxford Man). Co-founder of The Renovationists, an artistic collective dedicated to queering the canon.
Bess Wohl (she/her) is a playwright and filmmaker whose plays have been produced on and off Broadway, regionally, and internationally. Bess’s plays include Liberation (currently on Broadway), Grand Horizons (Broadway, Tony Nomination), Camp Siegfried, Make Believe, Continuity, Small Mouth Sounds, American Hero, Touched, In, Cats Talk Back and the musical Pretty Filthy. Her plays have been recognized with a variety of awards and nominations, including the Drama Desk, Drama League, Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics’ Circle. She made her feature film debut with her film Baby Ruby, starring Noémie Merlant and Kit Harington, which she wrote and directed. The film premiered at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival and was released by Magnolia Pictures in 2023. She also is developing multiple television projects and wrote for the Apple TV+ series, “Extrapolations.” Wohl is an associate artist with The Civilians, and an alumna of Ars Nova’s PlayGroup. Recently, she made her West End debut with a sold out run of Barcelona. She is a graduate of Harvard and the Yale School of Drama.
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