About the Prize

We’re campaigning to ensure the transition to a more equitable and sustainable sector where historically overlooked voices have a seat at table.

The Women’s Prize for Playwriting is one step in the movement towards redressing the gender balance of plays produced in our theatres and crucially on our main stages.

By elevating and staging extraordinary new plays by women and non-binary writers, we seek to redefine and revitalise the canon for future generations.

In 2024 the Women’s Prize for Playwriting became a registered charity in order to secure the future of the prize and make the running of the prize as transparent as possible.

Our mission is to champion female and non-binary playwrights by ensuring their work is seen and heard by audiences across the UK. Charitable status enables us to become more focused on producing the winning play, to elevate those recognized by the Prize as Finalists, Shortlistees and Longlistees, and ultimately to safeguard the sustainability of the prize for the years to come.

Our Board of Trustees and Advisory Council are a group of extraordinary people who bring a depth of experience from a broad range of industries and will help to guide and hold the prize to account as we build on the foundations of the last 5 years.

TRUSTEES

Kathleen Bacon (Chair)
Katherine Ashton
Sir Rupert Gavin
Ellie Keel

ADVISORY COUNCIL

Rosie Alison
Rupert Gavin
Daisy Goodwin
Aidan Grounds
Tessa Murray

The Women’s Prize for Playwriting was founded by Ellie Keel and Paines Plough to do things differently. In early 2019, it had become clear that the situation for women playwrights in the UK was both dismal and untenable. Only 26% of new main-stage plays in 2018 were by women, and the National Theatre had just announced a season of 6 plays, all by men. Things had to change.

After six months spent exploring different ways of tackling this urgent problem, Ellie Keel approached Charlotte Bennett and Katie Posner (Joint Artistic Directors of Paines Plough) with an idea. A prize to champion and celebrate female playwrights, but also to produce the play that won the prize in a high-profile theatre. The prize would be £12,000 – thought to be enough to enable a writer to devote themselves to a project for a few months without the need to find other work – and the play would be produced by the Founding Partners and other collaborators. Ellie, Charlotte and Katie worked quickly, and the Prize was launched on 4 October 2019, less than two months after their original conversation.

In its first year, the Prize received 1,163 submissions. A team of dedicated readers worked through the coronavirus pandemic to process these plays and send a shortlist to the judging panel, chaired by Mel Kenyon and including the actors Maxine Peake, Monica Dolan and Adjoa Andoh, the writer Ella Hickson, producer Kate Pakenham and directors Sarah Frankcom and Indhu Rubasingham. The panel awarded two First Prizes of £12,000: to Amy Trigg for her hilarious and moving one-woman play Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me, and to Ahlam for her epic six-hander, You Bury Me.

Within six months, Reasons had premiered at London’s Kiln Theatre, directed by Charlotte Bennett and co-produced by the Prize, Kiln Theatre, Paines Plough and 45North. It played a critically-acclaimed run and was subsequently made into an audio production by Audible with Ellie Keel Productions. It was also published by Concord Theatricals as part of our Publishing Partnership.  In 2022, Reasons toured the UK with Paines Plough and returned to Kiln Theatre for a three-week revival run. In the meantime, You Bury Me had three staged readings at the Edinburgh International Festival and was developed for a major production in early 2023 at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Bristol Old Vic and the Orange Tree Theatre, directed by Katie Posner and co-produced with WPP, Paines Plough and 45North.

The winner of the 2021 Prize, Consumed by Karis Kelly, was selected from 850 submissions by a judging panel chaired by Mel Kenyon and including the actors Nicola Walker and Jodie Whittaker, playwrights Lucy Kirkwood and Winsome Pinnock, the critic Arifa Akbar, dramaturg Nina Steiger and directors Jenny Sealey and Indhu Rubasingham. Kelly was awarded the £12,000 Prize in a ceremony at the London Library.

Consumed opened at the Edinburgh Fringe in July 2025 before embarking on a UK tour in a production directed by Katie Posner (★★★★★ – Edinburgh Reviews, ★★★★ – WhatsOnStage, ★★★★ – The Herald). The production reopened in Spring 2026 at the Lyric Theatre Belfast and Park Theatre, London.

The winner of the 2023 Prize, Intelligence by Sarah Grohala, was selected from 1002 submissions by a judging panel chaired by Indhu Rubasingham and including critics Anya Ryan and Arifa Akbar, Head of the Theatre Department at Casarotto Ramsay & Associates Mel Kenyon, playwrights April de Angelis and Chris Bush, Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian Katharine Viner, broadcaster and journalist Samira Ahmed, actress Noma Dumezweni, and dramaturg Nina Steiger. The play is currently in development.

The winner of the 2025 Prize, Sapling by Georgina Duncan, was selected from 1275 submissions by a judging panel chaired by Indhu Rubasingham and including directors Milli Bhatia and Alice Hamilton, actress Romola Garai, playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Head of the Theatre Department at Casarotto Ramsay & Associates Mel Kenyon, Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic Nancy Medina, Literary & Development Associate at Wessex Grove Kat Pierce, dramaturg Nina Steiger, and Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian Katharine Viner. The play will be staged in 2027 at Sheffield Theatres.