JUDGES AND DATE ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2026 SUSAN SMITH BLACKBURN PRIZE
Press Contacts:
Rick Miramontez / Marie Bshara
rick@omdkc.com / marie@omdkc.com
212 695 7400
The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Contact:
Leslie Swackhamer
Executive Director
susansmithblackburn@gmail.com
FOR RELEASE ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, PLEASE
THE SUSAN SMITH BLACKBURN PRIZE
PRESTIGIOUS INTERNATIONAL AWARD
FOR WOMEN+ PLAYWRIGHTS
TO BE PRESENTED FEBRUARY 26
AT LONDON’S ROYAL COURT THEATRE
AUDRA MCDONALD
MIMI LIEN
AND MORE
JOIN JUDGING PANEL
To download an image of the judges, please click HERE.
New York/London (January 13, 2026) – The 2026 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced the Judging Panel for the 48th Annual Award. Founded in 1978, the Prize is the largest and oldest international prize honoring women+ playwrights for writing works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre. The Winner of the 2026 Prize will be announced on February 26 in a special invitation-only celebration at London’s Royal Court Theatre.
Judges for the 48th Annual Susan Smith Blackburn Prize are:
Julie Hesmondhalgh (UK) – Award Winning Television and Theatre Actress
Mara Isaacs (US) – Tony Award-Winning Broadway Producer
Mimi Lien (US) – Tony Award-Winning Set Designer
Benedict Lombe (UK) – Award-Winning Playwright
Audra McDonald (US) – Emmy, Grammy, and six-time Tony Award Winning Singer and Actor
Ian Rickson (UK) – Celebrated Theatre Director and former Artistic Director of the Royal Court
Prize Executive Director Leslie Swackhamer said today, “We are thrilled to announce this year’s panel of judges, who represent excellence in all areas of the theatre. Each one has had a major impact on our field. Their expertise, talent and vision are central to our process of curating and celebrating the Prize’s incredible roster of playwrights.”
Past Judges of The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize constitute a Who’s Who of the English-speaking theatre and include Edward Albee, Adjoa Andoh, Eileen Atkins, Zoe Caldwell, Glenn Close, Paule Constable, Harold Clurman, Colleen Dewhurst, Marianne Elliot, Ralph Fiennes, Greta Gerwig, John Guare, David Hare, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Tony Kushner, Marsha Norman, Joan Plowright, Indhu Rubasingham, Fiona Shaw, Tom Stoppard, Meryl Streep, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein, and August Wilson among over 250 artists in the United States, England and Ireland.
The ten Finalists for the 2026 Prize are:
Barbara Bergin (Ireland) Dublin Gothic
Hannah Doran (UK/Ireland) The 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
The Winner will be awarded $25,000 and a special print created especially for Winners and signed by renowned artist Willem De Kooning. A Special Commendation of $10,000 may be given at the discretion of the Judges, and each Finalist will receive $5,000.
Over 500 plays have been honored as Finalists of the Prize and many have gone on to receive other 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 for Drama. The Susan Smith Blackburn 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.
ABOUT THE JUDGES
Julie Hesmondhalgh has starred in some of the most iconic British television series, including Coronation Street (as series regularHayley Cropper), Broadchurch and Happy Valley. Theatre work includes: Punch (Apollo Theatre/Nottingham Playhouse/Young Vic); An Oak Tree (Young Vic); (); White Rabbit Red Rabbit (Soho Place); Blue Now (Factory International); The Jungle (St Ann’s Warehouse, New York); The Greatest Play in the History of the World (Trafalgar Studios/National Tour); The Report with Lemn Sissay (Royal Court); Mother Courage and Her Children, The Almighty Sometimes, Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster, Blindsided (Royal Exchange, Manchester); Wit (Royal Exchange, Manchester – winner of Best Female Performer 2017 MTAs); There Are No Beginnings (Leeds Playhouse); God Bless the Child (Royal Court).
Film & Television includes: Alma’s Not Normal, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, You & Me, The Pact, The A Word, The Trouble with Maggie Cole, Dr Who, Catastrophe, Broadchurch (BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress), Happy Valley, Black Roses (Royal Television Society Best Actress 2014), Moving On, Inside No 9, Cucumber, Hayley Cropper in Coronation Street 1998-2014 (National TV Award 2014, Royal Television Society Award 2013).
Julie is a regular voice on BBC Radio 4 and an accomplished writer.
She co-runs Take Back theatre company in Manchester and the fundraising group, 500 Acts of Kindness. She is a supporter of Arts Emergency.
Mara Isaacs is a Tony® and Grammy® Award-winning creative producer, recognized as a leader in developing and producing new plays, musicals and multi-disciplinary work across the globe. Mara generates opportunity through the organizations and programs she creates: Octopus Theatricals, to produce an expansive body of work—from experimental to commercial; Octoverse Media, an independent record label and multi-media platform; Producer Hub, providing professional resources and community to producers and artists in the independent sector; and Arts Impact Collaborative, to tell compelling stories documenting the essential role the arts play in communities throughout the US. Selected production highlights: Hadestown (Broadway, West End, North American Tour; Best Musical Tony and Grammy); Gypsy with Audra McDonald (Broadway); Goddess (Public Theatre 2025); Patrick Page’s All the Devils Are Here (off-Broadway, US Tour); (…Iphigenia) a new opera by Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding (premiere and US tour); Theatre for One (US, Ireland, Kenya). In Development: Bhangra Nation; The Queen’s Gambit; I Feel Myself to be Part of Something (documentary film series) and more. Mara is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence with Yale Ventures. She serves on the boards of Producer Hub, the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund, Almasi Arts Alliance and the Broadway League, and as a member of the Tony Administration Committee and American Theatre Wing Advisory Board. Previously: Producing Director at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, NJ and Associate Producer at the Mark Taper Forum/Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles.
Mimi Lien is a designer of sets/environments for theater, dance, and opera. Arriving at set design from a background in architecture, her work often focuses on the interaction between audience/environment and object/performer.
In 2015 she was named a MacArthur Fellow, and is the first stage designer ever to achieve this distinction. Mimi received the 2017 Tony Award for her design of Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812 on Broadway.
Selected work includes Antony & Cleopatra (Metropolitan Opera / San Francisco Opera), Grounded (Metropolitan Opera), Parsifal (Bayreuther Festspiele), The Righteous (Santa Fe Opera), Intelligence (Houston Grand Opera), Die Zauberflöte (Staatsoper Berlin), The Comet/Poppea (The Industry/AMOC*/Lincoln Center), Pelléas et Mélisande (Cleveland Orchestra), 4 Nights of Dream (Japan Society/Tokyo Bunka Kaikan), Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812 (Broadway, Tony Award), Sweeney Todd (Broadway – Tony nomination), Fairview and An Octoroon (Soho Rep). Her stage designs have been presented in NYC and around the US at the Public Theater, Signature Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, The Kitchen, Berkeley Rep, A.R.T., Mark Taper Forum, Wilma Theater, Longwharf Theatre, Goodman Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, and Alliance Theatre, among others.
Large-scale public artworks include The GREEN (2021, New York), a public space intervention commissioned by Lincoln Center; PARADE (2022, Toronto), a conveyor-belt installation commissioned by The Bentway Conservancy; MODEL HOME (2017, San Diego), a performance installation utilizing a 60-ft crane; and 2×4 tree (2016), a kinetic sculpture commissioned by the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.
Her design work has been exhibited in the Prague Quadrennial, and her sculpture work was featured in the exhibition, LANDSCAPES OF QUARANTINE, at the Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Selected awards include a Bessie Award, Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award, American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award, an OBIE Award for sustained excellence, and a Tony Award.
Mimi is a co-founder of the Brooklyn performance/art space, JACK.
Benedict Lombe is an award-winning Congolese British playwright and screenwriter. Her work includes the hit play Shifters, which enjoyed a sell-out run at the Bush Theatre in Spring 2024 before transferring to the West End in Summer 2024, marking a ground-breaking moment as Benedict Lombe became the third Black British female playwright to have a play staged in the West End. Shifters went on to have another sell-out run at the Duke of York’s Theatre, earning two Olivier Award nominations in 2025, including an Olivier nomination for Best New Play – making Benedict the first Black British woman to be nominated in this category.
Shifters is currently in development for a TV adaptation with Oscar, Emmy and BAFTA-winning production company See-Saw. Further screen work in development includes an original feature film for BBC Films and Expanded Media, alongside other screen adaptations and new plays in development.
Other notable work includes her debut play Lava which premiered at the Bush Theatre in 2021 to universal acclaim. Benedict was awarded the 2022 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for Lava, becoming one of the first writers in the prize’s history to win the award for a debut play.
Lava also won a Black British Theatre Award, Best Performance Piece at the 2022 Offies (Off West End Awards) and was nominated for the Alfred Fagon Award for Best New Play of the Year. She has been on attachment with the National Theatre Studio to develop new work.
Audra McDonald is unparalleled in the breadth and versatility of her artistry as both a singer and an actor. The winner of a record-breaking six Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and an Emmy, in 2015 she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and received the National Medal of Arts—America’s highest honor for achievement in the field—from President Barack Obama. In addition to her Tony-winning performances in Carousel, Master Class, Ragtime, A Raisin in the Sun, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill—the role that also served as the vehicle for her Olivier Award-nominated 2017 debut in London’s West End—she has appeared on Broadway in The Secret Garden; Marie Christine (Tony nomination); Henry IV; 110 in the Shade (Tony nomination); Shuffle Along, or, The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (Tony nomination); and Ohio State Murders (Tony nomination). She earned an unprecedented eleventh Tony nomination in a revival of Gypsy (2024–25), becoming the acting categories’ most decorated individual in Tony history and prompting Time to pronounce her “the greatest living stage actor.”
On television, she was seen by millions as the Mother Abbess in NBC’s The Sound of Music Live!, won an Emmy Award for her role as host of PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center, and received Emmy nominations for Wit, A Raisin in the Sun, and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. Having played Dr. Naomi Bennett on Shonda Rhimes’s Private Practice (ABC) and Liz Reddick (formerly Lawrence) on both The Good Wife (CBS) and The Good Fight (Paramount+), she may now be seen as Dorothy Scott on Julian Fellowes’s The Gilded Age (HBO). On film, she has appeared in Seven Servants, The Object of My Affection, Cradle Will Rock, It Runs in the Family, The Best Thief in the World, She Got Problems, Rampart, Ricki and the Flash, Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast, the movie-musical Hello Again, Down Low, Ava DuVernay’s Origin, Cinergistik’s documentary Whitney Houston in Focus, the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions’ Rustin, and MGM’s Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect.McDonald is a Juilliard-trained soprano, whose opera credits include La voix humaine and Send at Houston Grand Opera, and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at Los Angeles Opera, where the resulting recording earned her two Grammy Awards. She has issued five solo albums on the Nonesuch label as well as Sing Happy with the New York Philharmonic on Decca Gold. She also maintains a major career as a concert artist, regularly appearing on the great stages of the world and with leading international orchestras. She is a founding member of Black Theatre United, board member of Covenant House International, and prominent advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights, whose favorite roles are those performed offstage, as an activist, wife to actor Will Swenson, and mother to her amazing children.
Ian Rickson is one of British theatre’s most celebrated and in-demand directors and has made a vast impact as a champion of new writing for the theatre. He was the Artistic Director of the Royal Court from 1998 to 2006. At the Royal Court, he directed acclaimed and landmark productions including The Weir by Conor McPherson, Jerusalem, The River (also West End and Broadway), Mojo (also Chicago) all by Jez Butterworth; Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen and This is a Chair by Caryl Churchill. West End shows include Lyonesse, Rosmersholm; Uncle Vanya, The Birthday Party, Old Times, Betrayal and The Children’s Hour; National Theatre, London Tide, Paradise, All of Us, Translations by Brian Friel, Evening at the Talk House by Wallace Shawn, The Red Lion by Patrick Marber, The Hothouse by Harold Pinter. Productions at the Old Vic include Electra by Sophocles. During the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, Ian created and hosted a podcast series called “What I Love” featuring interviews with actors, writers, comedians, and producers, conducted on the empty stages of some of Britain’s most iconic theatres, shut down due to the pandemic. Ian was Artistic Director of Sonia Friedman’s Re-Emerge season in the West End in 2021 and directed for the stage and the filming of Walden, one of the three plays in that Season. Rickson also works with PJ Harvey and Kate Tempest on their music and poetry shows.
For more information about the Prize, please visit www.blackburnprize.org
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