Finalist Scripts Revealed For The Women's Prize For Playwriting 2023

The Women’s Prize for Playwriting, produced by Ellie Keel and Paines Plough, has announced the five finalist scripts for The Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2023, selected from 1,002 entries. Launched in 2019, the Prize is designed to celebrate and support exceptional playwrights who identify as female or non-binary by providing them with a national platform.

The Prize is for a full-length play (defined as over 60 minutes in length), written in English, and the winning playwright wins £12,000 in respect of an option for Ellie Keel Productions and Paines Plough to co-produce the winning play. The Prize is sponsored by Samuel French Ltd, a Concord Theatricals company, who are the official publishing partner of the prize, and by commercial theatre producers Fiery Angel. The Founding Sponsor is the leading recruitment agency, PER.

In its inaugural year, two First Prizes of £12,000 were awarded. Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me by Amy Trigg premiered at Kiln Theatre to critical acclaim in May 2021, directed by Charlotte Bennett. An audio version was produced by Audible the following month. You Bury Me by Ahlam, directed by Katie Posner, had a staged reading at the Lyceum Theatre in August as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. Co-produced by Paines Plough, The Women’s Prize for Playwriting, 45North, The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and The Orange Tree Theatre, in association with Bristol Old Vic, You Bury Me premiered in Spring 2023 to critical acclaim. Consumed by Karis Kelly was the 2021 winning script, and the play is currently in development, with further details to be announced.

Ellie Keel, Founder Director of The Women’s Prize for Playwriting, today said, “After 1002 submissions and an incredibly strong Longlist and Shortlist, it feels slightly surreal to have reached this final stage! The depth and breadth of all five plays is incredibly impressive, and I cannot wait to hear the judges’ thoughts on them in January. At WPP we feel incredibly lucky to be working with writers at the very top of their game in terms of craft and concept. Choosing one winner will be very hard, but I hope and believe that all five plays will have a future life. Theatres, directors, producers – please read these plays and meet the writers, who are all brilliant.”

Katie Posner and Debo Adebayo, Joint Artistic Director and Deputy Artistic Director of Paines Plough, commented: “Reading for the Prize this year has been a truly enriching experience and a privilege. Over 1000 writers shared their work, writers of unquestionable talent who we will continue to champion outside of the parameters of the Prize. Getting to the final five was never going to be an easy task, especially from a shortlist of plays that were superb, ambitious and thrilling. We could not be prouder to submit these five plays to our esteemed panel of judges who now have the task of selecting a winner. They are of astounding quality, from edge of the seat thrillers, to highly provocative, visual and magically real dramas. A huge congratulations to all the finalists. To us, they are all winning plays that we know would bring joy to audiences and fill theatres. Lastly, another thank you to the shortlisted writers and all the writers who submitted this year, and to the incredible team of readers we have worked with, we are emphatically grateful to you all for sharing your work with us."

The judges for this year’s Prize, chaired by the newly appointed Artistic Director of The National Theatre Indhu Rubasingham, are journalist Samira Ahmed, playwrights April De Angelis and Chris Bush, actor Noma Dumezweni, literary agent Mel Kenyon, journalist and critic Anya Ryan, Head of Play Development at The National Theatre, Nina Steiger, and Guardian Editor-in-Chief Katharine Viner.

The finalist plays are:

• Bellringers by Daisy Hall
• LUMIN by Emma Gibson
• Intelligence by Sarah Grochala
• The Angels Were Worms by Shaan Sahota
• King Troll (The Fawn) by Sonali Bhattacharyya

The winner(s) will be announced at a ceremony at the London Library on Friday 19 January 2024.

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