Longlisted Plays Revealed For The Women's Prize For Playwriting 2025

The Women's Prize for Playwriting - produced by Ellie Keel Productions and Paines Plough - has announced the 41 longlisted scripts for its 2025 award, selected from a record-breaking 1,275 submissions. The Prize also launches Future Light, a new talent development programme designed to support the longlisted playwrights on their creative journeys.

Future Light offers longlisted playwrights one-on-one dramaturgical support, writing workshops led by leading UK playwrights, and a dedicated Futures Day of industry-focused sessions in Spring 2026. Supported by Arts Council England, Future Light will be the most detailed and expansive feedback and development programme offered by any literary prize in the UK. Launched in 2019, the Women's Prize for Playwriting celebrates and supports exceptional female and non-binary playwrights, and campaigns for their plays to be presented on national stages in the UK and Ireland. The Prize is awarded to a full-length play - defined as over 60 minutes in duration - written in English. The First Prize-winning play receives £20,000 in respect of an option for Ellie Keel Productions, Paines Plough, and Sheffield Theatres to co-produce the play. The prize is sponsored by Samuel French Ltd, a Concord Theatricals company, the official publishing partner of the prize. The 2025 winner will be decided by a judging panel chaired by Director of The National Theatre, Indhu Rubasingham, and will be announced at a ceremony in London in February 2026.
 
Ellie Keel, Founder Director of the Women's Prize for Playwriting and Charlie Coulthard, Literary Manager of the Women's Prize for Playwriting today said, “These 41 exceptional plays represent the top 3% of a record-breaking 1,275 submissions — our highest number to date. We are deeply impressed by their extraordinary range, level of craft, and ambitious scope, which reflect the remarkable talent within this year's cohort. We're also thrilled to announce Future Light, a new talent development programme supported by Arts Council England. Designed to support the writers on our longlist, Future Light marks a significant step forward in WPP's commitment to fostering excellence and expanding opportunities for female and non-binary writers for the stage in the UK and Ireland.”

Katie Posner Joint Artistic Director of Paines Plough added, “It has been an amazing, record-breaking year of submissions to the Women's Prize for Playwriting, and we've read stories that have travelled the world and taken in a breathtaking range of human experience. It's a joy to have read and advocated for these long-listed writers, and we can't wait to keep these writers close as we invite them to join the exciting Future Light scheme.”

The longlist in full is:

• Wold Meteor by Kate Attwell
• Weeping Woman by Ellen Bannerman
• The Fingerprint Bureau by Sonali Bhattacharyya
• while we burn by Olga Braga
• An Effigy Burning in the Arctic by Mareth Burns
• HIDE AND SEEK WITH JIMMY LING by Naomi Sumner Chan
• Ordinary Time by Evie Chandler
• I LOVE STRANGERS by Nurit Chinn
• Hefted by Eireann Devlin
• Sapling by Georgina Duncan
• THE (YELLOW) WALLPAPER by Phoebe Eclair-Powell
• f-ing Jane Austen by Billie Esplen
• Froggy by Sasha Frost
• A Patent Lie by Sarah Jane Gordon
• Exceptional by Afsaneh Gray
• First Gravedigger by Kayleigh Mai Hinsley
• THREE BOYS by Danielle James
• Unbirth by Christy Ku
• Down Side Up by Mei Leng Yew
• Northern Folk by Natalia Lewis
• Witch Play by Cordelia Lynn
• A Straw House by Jane McCarthy
• Car Crash by Sarah Ann McCay 
• Am I Next? by Rachel McKay
• We're Gonna Kill Billy by Alex Medland
• To The Earth You Shall Return by Hannah Mirsky
• A to B by Tia-Renee Mullings
• Yes Chef by Laurie Ogden
• If The Sea Should Part by Chloe Palmer
• VENUS: The Body by Sadie Pearson
• A Bit Salty by Mwansa Phiri
• CROSSINGS by Hannah Salt
• Przewalski's Horses by Silva Semerciyan
• A Search for the End by Stef Smith
• WHAT I THINK OF MY HUSBAND by Amy Tobias
• Slime by Rachel Tookey
• Belongings by Jane Upton
• Up in the Mango Trees by Britny Virginia
• THE ROOM by Manjinder Virk
• Wide Open Spaces by Jane Wainwright
• The Children of Glyndwr by Emily White

 Chaired by Director and Co-Chief Executive of The National Theatre 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, 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.