Donja R. Love Names Andrew Russell Recipient of the 2025 Write It Out! Prize

Donja R. Love has announced Andrew Russell as the 2025 recipient of the Write It Out! Prize for playwrights living with HIV and AIDS. Love personally selected Russell’s play MY MARIA after reading the work of three finalists chosen by readers from Write It Out!.

“Andrew’s play is a triumph. It’s epic in scope, while tender with the relationships he crafted. I was in awe of what he was able to accomplish. The conversation the play is having about loneliness, connection, and redemption left me in tears. It’s the kind of play that leaves you aching to know more about the character you’ve spent so much time with. It’s the kind of play that reminds you of why you fell in love with theatre,” said Donja R. Love, Founder and Executive Director of Write It Out!.

Founded by Love in 2019 and centering community, wellness, and imagination, Write It Out! (WIO!) is a groundbreaking playwriting organization serving people living with HIV and AIDS. Write It Out! takes pride in being created by the Poz community for the Poz community. The organization is designed to cultivate a space for those living with HIV to grow their artistic voice through its prize, program, and retreat.

Write It Out! prioritizes confidentiality. The decision to openly live with HIV still carries the risk of discrimination. A lot of care and consideration goes into a recipient of this prize deciding to go public with this announcement. WIO! honors its participants’ journeys regarding their HIV status and disclosure.

Past recipients of the prize include Matty Mahoski in 2023 and Dominic Colón in 2021. Colón was named the inaugural recipient of the Write It Out! Prize for his play The War I Know. The 2021 Write It Out! prize was funded by Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor Billy Porter, known for his roles on the hit TV show Pose and the musical Kinky Boots, with additional support from LGBTQ nonprofit GLAAD.

As the recipient of the 2025 Write It Out! Prize, Russell will receive a cash award of $10,000, as well as a year of dramaturgical support to develop a new work in the coming year.

“I’m a late bloomer. I have never received a prize for my writing. It seems only fitting that my first be so directly from my community. Anyone who valiantly ventures to make a career in theatre knows this: you have to take the wins – big and small, common and rare – as flares from the gods to keep going, keep writing, keep telling stories,” says Russell. “In more ways than I can state, receiving the 2025 Write It Out! Prize does just that, and then some. I’m truly gobsmacked and grateful.”

The Write It Out! prize culminates in an in-person reading of Russell’s new work, which will be developed during their time as the prize’s 2025 recipient. The reading is scheduled for early 2027.

In addition to the prize, Write It Out! is hosting its sixth annual Final Sharing, which consists of 10-minute plays written by the 2025 Fellows of the Write It Out! ten-week program. The Final Sharing will take place on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, at 7 PM EST at The Center.

“Write It Out! represents freedom for me—freedom to express, to create, and simply to exist as I am. Through WIO!, I discovered a voice—not the one I use to speak every day, but the inner voice that often gets muted by fear of stepping outside the lines,” says a 2025 Write It Out! Fellow. “This fellowship gave me the space to not only hear that voice but to nurture it, helping it grow into something powerful—not just for me, but for others like me who may never get the chance to share their stories.”

The year’s program and prize were made possible thanks to the generous support of ViiV Healthcare, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, The Terrence McNally Foundation, and GLAAD.

Photo Credit: Donja R Love – Brandon R Nicholas (Left), Andrew Russell – JJ Geiger (Right)