Shortlisted Scripts Announced For The Women’s Prize For Playwriting 2025

The Women’s Prize for Playwriting has announced the 20 shortlisted scripts for its 2025 award, selected from a record-breaking 1,275 submissions.

Launched in 2019, the Prize has championed female and non-binary playwrights, and campaigns for their plays to be presented on national stages in the UK and Ireland. Open to English-language plays running over 60 minutes, the Prize offers its First Prize winner £20,000 alongside an option for Ellie Keel Productions, Paines Plough, and Sheffield Theatres to co-produce the work. The prize is sponsored by Samuel French Ltd, a Concord Theatricals company, the official publishing partner of the prize.

The finalist plays will be announced in December. The winner, chosen by a judging panel chaired by Indhu Rubasingham, Director and Co-Chief Executive of The National Theatre, will be announced at a ceremony at @sohoplace on 9 February 2026.

The Shortlist in Full:

• Weeping Woman by Ellen Bannerman
• The Fingerprint Bureau by Sonali Bhattacharyya
• HIDE AND SEEK WITH JIMMY LING by Naomi Sumner Chan
• I LOVE STRANGERS by Nurit Chinn
• Sapling by Georgina Duncan
• The (Yellow) Wallpaper by Phoebe Eclair-Powell
• F**king Jane Austen by Billie Esplen
• A Patent Lie by Sarah Jane Gordon
• Three Boys by Danielle James
• Witch Play by Cordelia Lynn
• We’re Gonna Kill Billy by Alex Medland
• A to B by Tia-Renee Mullings
• Yes Chef by Laurie Ogden
• Przewalski’s Horses by Silva Semerciyan
• A Search for the End by Stef Smith
• Belongings by Jane Upton
• Up in the Mango Trees by Britny Virginia
• The Room by Manjinder Virk
• The Children of Glyndwr by Emily White
• Down Side Up by Mei Leng Yew

Chaired by Indhu Rubasingham, the judging panel also includes Literary & Development Associate at Wessex Grove Kat Pierce, directors Milli Bhatia and Alice Hamilton, actress Romola Garai, Literary Agent Mel Kenyon, playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic NANCY MEDINA, The National Theatre’s Director of New Work Nina Steiger, and Guardian Editor-in-Chief Katharine Viner.

Previous winners of the prize include Amy Trigg (Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me), Ahlam (You Bury Me), and Karis Kelly (Consumed). Their plays have gone on to critical success and major productions, with Consumed recently completing a hit UK tour and sell-out run at the Traverse as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe, ahead of transfers to Lyric Belfast and Park Theatre in Spring 2026. The most recent winner, Sarah Grochala, is developing her play Intelligence with Paines Plough and Ellie Keel Productions.