Two new plays about to open in London have been nominated for this year’s Susan Smith Blackburn prize for female, transgender and non-binary playwrights.
One is a backstage comedy, set in the West End in 1800, about the personal and professional life of celebrated actor Sarah Siddons. The Divine Mrs S, which will run at Hampstead theatre from next month, is written by April De Angelis who has had more than 30 plays staged over her career.
The other, which opens at the Yard theatre this week, is a debut by Rhianna Ilube. Set in Ghana in 2019, it explores colonialism’s impact on British identity and has the eye-catching title Samuel Takes a Break … in Male Dungeon No 5 After a Long But Generally Successful Day of Tours.
There are eight other plays on the shortlist for the award, chosen from more than 200 submissions. Two of the finalists have already been staged in London. A Woman Walks Into a Bank, Roxy Cook’s tragicomedy about Russia, which features a talking cat, ran at Theatre503 last year. Jasmine Naziha Jones’s Baghdaddy uses clowning to explore global conflict and was performed at the Royal Court in 2022 with its playwright among the cast. Ava Pickett’s play 1536, meanwhile, was submitted to the prize by the Almeida theatre who commissioned it as part of their Genesis Programme. It received a special mention at the 2023 George Devine award for its “inventiveness, playfulness and savage undercurrent”.
The other five finalists are North American. The Dowagers is by Justice Hehir, a playwright and doula whose work explores sexuality and resilience. Hannah Moscovitch’s Red Like Fruit examines trauma and consent after #MeToo. K-I-S-S-I-N-G by poet and playwright Lenelle Moïse is a romantic comedy. a.k. payne’s Love I Awethu Further is a tale of revolt in the antebellum south and was inspired by Julius Caesar. Chinese Republicans is a comedy by Alex Lin who says her work is “powered by a drive to bridge the gap between the science and entertainment industries”.
The winner of the prize, which has run since 1978, will be announced on 11 March and will be awarded $25,000 (£19,900) and a signed print by Willem de Kooning. Last year, the prize was won by US playwright Sarah Mantell for In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot, a play about “queer ageing, capitalism, campfires and falling in love as the world ends”.
Mantell is on this year’s judging panel, alongside poet-playwright Inua Ellams, the actors April Matthis and Clare Perkins, and the directors Eric Ting and Lyndsey Turner.
