The prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced U.S. playwright a.k. payne as the 2025 winner for their play Furlough’s Paradise. This international award, recognizing women+ playwrights, has been celebrated annually since 1978 and is the largest and oldest prize of its kind for English-speaking theatre.
On March 10, theatre artists and leaders gathered at Playwrights Horizons in New York City to honor payne and eight finalists. Payne received a $25,000 cash prize and a signed print by renowned artist Willem de Kooning.
Playwright and performer Heidi Schreck, a two-time finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, opened the ceremony with a monologue from her successful play What the Constitution Means to Me.
Upon receiving the award, a.k. payne expressed gratitude, saying, “I am so grateful to receive this award and join a list of some of my favorite writers whose plays have shaken how I understand the world and who have made it possible—through their words transcending space and time and/or their caring and abundant mentorship—for me to write: Katori Hall, Julia Cho, Lynn Nottage, Sarah Ruhl, Benedict Lombe and Paula Vogel to name a very select few”.
Prize executive director Leslie Swackhamer emphasized the importance of recognizing the voices of women, trans, and non-binary writers, stating, “We must remind ourselves of the power of our voices, and the special magic we create when we lift them at the theatre. Every voice on our stage tonight deserves to be honored, celebrated and heard”.
Furlough’s Paradise is described by payne as a “lyrical journey about grief, home, and survival.” The play follows cousins Sade and Mina, who return to their childhood town for the funeral of their mother and aunt. Sade is on a three-day furlough from prison, while Mina takes a brief reprieve from her career on the West Coast. As they navigate grief, home, love, and kinship, past traumas and resentments threaten to pull them apart.
The play won the 20th annual Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition and the National Theatre Conference’s Stavis Playwriting Award.
Nominated by Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, Furlough’s Paradise premiered in 2024 under the direction of Artistic Director Tinashe Kajese-Bolden. The play will have its West Coast premiere at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles this April, also directed by Kajese-Bolden.
Geffen Artistic Director Tarell Alvin McCraney praised the play, saying, “This play is poetic and funny, but it’s also charting what it means to try to find a utopia in a world that has a criminal justice system that is far from perfect. Payne was one of my students, and probably one of the most powerful writers I’ve encountered in my time as a professor”.
Two plays received Special Commendations of $10,000 each: 49 Days by Haruna Lee and An Oxford Man by Else Went.
Finalists for the 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, each receiving $5,000, include:
- Chris Bush (UK) Otherland
- Carys Coburn (Ireland) BÁN
- Keiko Green (US) You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World
- Isobel McArthur (UK-Scotland) The Fair Maid of the West
- Suzie Miller (Australia-UK) Inter Alia
- Anna Ziegler (US) The Janeiad
