Three PlayPenn Playwrights Selected as Finalists for the 48th Annual Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
- PlayPenn
- Nov 28
- 4 min read
The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize announces it 2025 finalists for the prestigious international playwriting award – in an exclusive video by Pedro Pascal – the largest and oldest award recognizing women+ writers for plays of outstanding quality written for the English-speaking theatre. For nearly fifty years, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has recognized the most visionary women+ writing for the stage — artists whose voices have defined and redefined contemporary theatre. Past Winners of the Prize include Annie Baker, Alice Birch, Benedict Lombe, Julia Cho, Caryl Churchill, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Katori Hall, Lucy Kirkwood, Marsha Norman, Lynn Nottage, Dael Orlandersmith, Lucy Prebble, Sarah Ruhl, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein and Timberlake Wertenbaker.
This February 26th, The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize will announce the Winner of the 48th Annual Prize at the Royal Court Theatre in London with a special presentation and celebration
Among the ten finalists selected for the 48th Annual Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, three are PlayPenn playwrights:
Jen Silverman - PlayPenn 2014 (they/them) is a playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. Recent productions include Creditors (TOGETHER x Audible/Sonia Friedman), the Broadway premiere of The Roommate (starring Mia Farrow & Patti LuPone) and Spain(Second Stage). Other plays include: Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (MCC), Witch (Geffen Playhouse) and The Moors (Playwrights Realm, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist). In 2014, PlayPenn presented a reading of her play Wild Blue as part of the 2014 PlayPenn New Play Development Conference.
DeLanna Studi - PlayPenn 2023 (she/hers) is a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation and the Artistic Director of Native Voices, the only Equity theater dedicated to Native playwrights. A 2022 United States Artists Fellow and recipient of the Advance Gender Equity in the Arts Legacy Playwright Award, her accolades include the Butcher Scholar Award and support from the Doris Duke Performing Artist Fund. Her debut play, And So We Walked, based on retracing her family’s footsteps along the Trail of Tears, premiered Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane and was recorded for Audible. In 2023, PlayPenn presented an online reading of "I" is for Invisible. DeLanna Studi is also a member of PlayPenn's Board of Directors.
Bess Wohl - PlayPenn 2012 (she/her) is a playwright and filmmaker whose plays have been produced on and off Broadway, regionally, and internationally. Bess’s plays include Liberation (currently on Broadway), Grand Horizons (Broadway, Tony Nomination), Camp Siegfried, Make Believe, Continuity, Small Mouth Sounds, American Hero, Touched, In, Cats Talk Back and the musical Pretty Filthy. In 2012, PlayPenn developed Bess’s searing two-hander Barcelona, which later received its world-premiere production at People’s Light in Malvern, PA in 2013. The play has subsequently been produced at theatres around the country, including the Geffen Playhouse, and was most recently seen on London’s West End in 2024.
ABOUT THE FINALIST PLAYS:
“I” is for Invisible by DeLanna Studi (Cherokee Nation) submitted by the New Harmony Project (Indiana)
I” is for Invisible follows one family’s urgent search for their missing loved one amid the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, confronting apathetic law enforcement and a system built to overlook them. Interwoven with Cherokee cosmology, this mysterious thriller explores grief, hope, and the fight for visibility, justice, and healing.
Workshops and readings are scheduled for April 2026 as part of PlayFest Indy (the New Harmony Project). The Native Theatre Project will have a workshop and reading on May 5, the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/ Relatives.
Liberation by Bess Wohl (US) submitted by Roundabout Theatre Company (New York City)
1970s, Ohio. Lizzie gathers a group of women to talk about changing their lives, and the world. What follows is a necessary, messy, and bitingly funny exploration of what it means to be free, and to be a woman. In Liberation, Lizzie’s daughter steps into her mother’s memory—into the unfinished revolution she once helped ignite—and searches the past to find the answer for herself.
Premiered in winter of 2025 at the Roundabout Theatre Company in the Laura Pels Theatre. Currently on Broadway at the James Earl Jones Theatre.
Regressions by Jen Silverman (US) submitted by Playful Productions (London)
David can’t figure out why his life is falling apart…so he goes to see Nora, who gives past life regressions. When David discovers Nora in all his past lives – in increasingly dangerous ways – both must ask themselves whether they’re on a collision course to either escape the past, or re-live it. A play about belief, epigenetics, how we try to know ourselves, and what happens when our histories collide.
Full List of Finalists for the 48th Annual Susan Smith Blackburn Prize:
Barbara Bergin (Ireland) Dublin Gothic
Hannah Doran (UK/Ireland) Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights
Amy Jephta (South Africa) A Good House
Frances Poet (UK) Small Acts of Love
Ro Reddick (US) Cold War Choir Practice
Jasmine Sharma (US) Pigeonhole
Jen Silverman (US) Regressions
DeLanna Studi (Cherokee Nation) “I” is for Invisible
Else Went (US) Initiative
Bess Wohl (US) Liberation
To learn more about the finalist and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize visit https://www.blackburnprize.org
