| JUDGES AND DATE ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2025 SUSAN SMITH BLACKBURN PRIZE | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 05:08 pm EST 01/27/25 | |
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| THE SUSAN SMITH BLACKBURN PRIZE PRESTIGIOUS INTERNATIONAL AWARD FOR WOMEN+ PLAYWRIGHTS TO BE PRESENTED MARCH 10 IN NEW YORK CITY JENNIFER EHLE INDIRA VARMA AND MORE JOIN JUDGING PANEL New York/London (January 27, 2025) – The organizers of The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize today announced that the prestigious playwriting award will be presented at an invitation-only event on Monday, March 10 at Playwrights Horizons in New York City. The Prize is the largest and oldest international playwriting award recognizing women+ writers for plays of outstanding quality written for the English-speaking theatre, celebrating its 47th year. The judging panel for the 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has just been announced, and they are: Linda Cho (US) – Tony Award-winning costume designer Jennifer Ehle (US) – Tony and BAFTA Award-winning actress Nancy Medina (UK) – Artistic Director of the Bristol Old Vic Mark Ravenhill (UK) – Legendary playwright and actor George Strus (US) – Founder, Breaking the Binary Theatre Indira Varma (UK) – Olivier Award-winning actress The winner of the 2025 Prize will be awarded $25,000 and a special limited-edition piece of art created specifically for Winners and signed by Willem De Kooning. A Special Commendation of $10,000 may be given at the discretion of the judges, and each Finalist will receive $5,000. The finalists for this year's Prize will be announced in early February. Prize Executive Director Leslie Swackhamer said today, "We are thrilled to announce this year's panel of judges, who represent excellence in all areas of the theatre. Their expertise, talent and vision are central to our process of curating and celebrating the Prize's incredible roster of playwrights." Founded in 1978, the Prize is awarded annually to celebrate women+ who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre. Over 500 plays have been honored as Finalists of the Prize and many have gone on to receive other top honors, including Olivier, Lilly, Evening Standard and Tony Awards for Best Play. Eleven Susan Smith Blackburn Finalist playwrights have subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The Prize results in more productions of plays by women+ writers and fosters the interchange of plays between the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other English-speaking countries. Winners of the Prize include Annie Baker, Julia Cho, Caryl Churchill, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Katori Hall, Lucy Kirkwood, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, Dael Orlandersmith, Lucy Prebble, Wendy Wasserstein, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Cheryl West. The Process: Each year artistic directors and prominent professionals in the theatre throughout the English-speaking world are asked to submit plays. Over 400 theatres from North America, Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand and the UK serve as Source Theatres for the Prize. Plays are eligible regardless of whether they have been produced, but any premiere production must have occurred within the preceding year. Prior Winners are not eligible. Each script receives multiple readings by members of an international reading committee that then selects ten finalists. A panel of six judges then selects the winning play. Past Judges of The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize constitute a Who's Who of the English-speaking theatre and include Edward Albee, Eileen Atkins, Zoe Caldwell, Glenn Close, Harold Clurman, Colleen Dewhurst, Marianne Elliot, Ralph Fiennes, Greta Gerwig, John Guare, David Hare, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Tony Kushner, Marsha Norman, Joan Plowright, Indhu Rubasingham, Fiona Shaw, Tom Stoppard, Meryl Streep, Jessica Tandy, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein, and August Wilson among over 250 artists in the United States, England and Ireland. For more information about the Prize, please visit www.blackburnprize.org ABOUT THE JUDGES Linda Cho is a two-time Tony Award winning Costume Designer based in New York City. She received the Tony Award of a Broadway musical for The Great Gatsby and A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and she was nominated for a Tony, Outer Critic's Circle and Drama Desk Award for the Broadway production of Anastasia. She has worked extensively across the US and internationally her work has been seen in Europe, Asia and South America. Her work in ballet and opera can be seen at The Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, American Ballet Theater, and others. She is the recipient of the Theatre Development Fund's Irene Sharaff Young Master Award and The Ruth Morely Design Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women and is currently serving on the Advisory Committee of the American Theatre Wing. Jennifer Ehle won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice. For her work on Broadway, she won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for The Real Thing, and the 2007 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Coast of Utopia. Ehle also is known for her performances in films including The King's Speech, Contagion, Zero Dark Thirty, A Little Chaos, Little Men, and She Said. She has also appeared in various television programs, including NBC's The Blacklist, the Hulu limited series The Looming Tower, the Showtime miniseries The Comey Rule, and the CBS legal drama The Good Fight. Theatre roles include: LCT: Oslo, The Coast of Utopia (Tony Award). Broadway: Design for Living, The Real Thing (Tony, Theatre World awards). Off-Broadway: Mr. & Mrs. Fitch (Second Stage), Macbeth. West End: The Philadelphia Story, The Real Thing, Tartuffe. Royal National Theatre: Summerfolk. Royal Shakespeare Company: Richard III, Painter of Dishonor, The Relapse. Nancy Medina is Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic, taking the role in 2023. In Oct 2023 she directed her first production for the theatre, a revival of Tarell Alvin McCraney's Choir Boy which received both Best Play and Best Director Awards at the BBTAs. As a director, her credits also include The Darkest Part of the Night (Kiln Theatre), Moreno (Theatre503), Trouble in Mind (National Theatre), The Half God Of Rainfall (Fuel/Birmingham Rep/Kiln Theatre) The Laramie Project (Bristol Old Vic Theatre School), Two Trains Running (Royal & Derngate / ETT / RTST), Strange Fruit (Bush Theatre), Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama), Yellowman (Young Vic), Curried Goat And Fish Fingers (Bristol Old Vic), Dogtag (Theatre West), and Strawberry & Chocolate, Dutchman (Tobacco Factory Theatres). She is a recipient of the following awards – 2024 Genesis Foundation Prize, 2020/2021 Peter Hall Bursary (National Theatre), 2018 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award (Royal & Derngate/English Touring Theatre), 2017 Genesis Future Director Award (Young Vic) and 2014 Emerging Director's Prize (Tobacco Factory Theatres). She was a visiting director at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and was joint Artistic Director and founder of the Bristol School of Acting. Mark Ravenhill is a widely produced British playwright, as well as an actor and journalist. His first play Shopping and Fucking was produced by Out of Joint and the Royal Court Theatre in 1996. Subsequent plays include Faust Is Dead and Handbag (both Actors Touring Company), Some Explicit Polaroids (Out of Joint at the Ambassadors Theatre), Mother Clap's Molly House and Citizenship (both National Theatre), Pool (No Water) (Frantic Assembly at the Lyric Theatre), The Cut (Donmar Theatre), Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat (Paines Plough) and Over There (Royal Court). He is a former Associate Artist of the National Theatre, London and Royal Shakespeare Company Playwright In Residence. He is a currently a trustee of the Royal Court Theatre. His plays have been widely translated and produced internationally. His plays are published by Methuen. George Strus (they/them) is a Tony Award-nominated and Obie Award-winning trans non-binary Latiné producer and dramaturg based in New York. They founded Breaking the Binary Theatre: an Obie Award-winning new work development and community building hub for transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2s+) theatermakers that has paid out over $600,000 to over 500 TNB2S+ artists since the organization's launch in July of 2022. They were a co-producer of the off-Broadway world premiere production of Stephen Sondheim's final musical, Here We Are and the Broadway premiere of Jackie Sibblies Drury, Justin Peck, and Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise (2024 Tony Nomination). Current co-producing credits include Cole Escola's Oh, Mary!, Jen Silverman's The Roommate, and Sam Gold's Romeo + Juliet. Upcoming co-producing credits include Simon Rich's All In, and Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years. Other commercial producing projects in development include Moisés Kaufman and Sasha Velour's Velour: A Drag Spectacular, Jake Brasch's Trip Around the Sun, Amber Ruffin's Bigfoot, and Stephen Sondheim's The Frogs (UK). They were awarded the 2024 Prince Fellowship (in association with Columbia University School of the Arts), receiving mentorship from Kristin Caskey, Sue Frost, Jeffrey Seller, Thomas Schumacher, and David Stone. They are an Associate Member of The Broadway League. www.georgestrus.com Indira Varma has played an eclectic mix of roles on stage and screen, including Luther and Game of Thrones, and One for the Road and The Seagull at theatres in New York and London. In 2024 she played Lady Macbeth alongside Ralph Fiennes. Oedipus, Faith Healer, Present Laughter (Old Vic Theatre), Macbeth (Wessex Theatre), The Seagull (Playhouse Theatre), Exit The King (Royal National Theatre), The Treatment, Five Gold Rings (Almeida Theatre) Celebration (Almeida/Broadway), Man and Superman (National Theatre), Tiger Country (Hampstead Theatre), Titus Andronicus (The Shakespeare Globe Trust), The Hothouse (Ambassadors Theater Group), Dance of Death, Twelfth Night (Donmar Warehouse) The Vortex, Pirates on Parade (Donmar Productions), Ingredient X, The Vertical Hour, The Country (Royal Court Theatre), Hysteria (Theatre Royal), The Skin of Our Teeth (Young Vic), Ivanov, Remembrance of Things Past, Othello (The Royal National Theatre), One for the Road (New Ambassadors/Broadway), The Three Sisters (Oxford Stage Company), As You Like It (Nottingham Playhouse). TV Includes: Obi Wan, The Capture 2, For Life, This Way Up, Carnival Row, Melrose, Unspeakable, Paranoid, New Blood, Game of Thrones, What Remains, Silk, Hunted, World Without End, Human Target, Luther, Hustle, Inside the Box, Whistleblowers, 3LBs, Inspector Lynley, Torchwood, Broken News, Love Soup, The Quatermass Experiment, Waste of Shame, Rome, Donavan, Reversals, The Sea Captain's Tale, Other People's Children, Psycho's. Film Includes: The Assessment, Dreamland, My One and Only Ivan, Official Secrets, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Blackbird, Silent Hours, All You Need is Kill, Mindscape, Basic Instead 2, Bride and Prejudice, Jinnah, Sixth Happiness, Kama Sutra. |
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