The Women’s Prize for Playwriting has revealed the 41 longlisted plays for its 2025 award, selected from a record-breaking 1,275 submissions.
Produced by Ellie Keel Productions and Paines Plough, the Prize also launches Future Light, a new initiative designed to support longlisted playwrights with dramaturgical guidance, workshops, and industry sessions.
Supported by Arts Council England, Future Light will be the most comprehensive development programme offered by any UK literary prize.
Launched in 2019, The Women’s Prize for Playwriting champions female and non-binary playwrights, awarding £20,000 to the winning full-length play, with an option for co-production by Ellie Keel Productions, Paines Plough, and Sheffield Theatres.
The 2025 winner will be selected by a panel chaired by Indhu Rubasingham, Director of the National Theatre, and announced in February 2026.
Ellie Keel and Charlie Coulthard 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 full longlist includes:
- 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
- Fucking 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
More information can be found here.
