Launch of the 2021 Women’s Prize for Playwriting

A prize is being awarded for playwrights from across the UK and Ireland who identify as female.

The Women’s Prize for Playwriting will support exceptional UK and Ireland-based playwrights who identify as female. The scheme is designed to celebrate and raise the profile of these playwrights 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.

The programme is interested in plays that rejoice in the depth and range of imagination and dramatic possibility and are ambitious on all scales and subjects. Plays must be unproduced and unperformed.

The writer of the script, awarded the First Prize by the judging panel, will receive £12,000 on or around the day of the awards ceremony in January 2022.

The Prize is open to writers at all levels of experience who identify as female. They must be resident in the UK or the Republic of Ireland and be sixteen years of age or older. There is no upper age limit. Scripts written by more than one author are eligible.

Submissions are open until Monday 12 July 2021 (17:00 BST).