The winner is awarded a cash prize of $25,000.
The nominees follow:
Lisa D'Amour (U.S.) - Airline Highway
Alice Birch (U.K.) - Revolt. She said. Revolt again.
Alecky Blythe (U.K.) - Little Revolution
Clare Barron (U.S.) - You Got Older
Clara Brennan (U.K.) - Spine
Katherine Chandler (U.K.) - Parallel Lines
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (U.S.) - The World of Extreme Happiness
Lindsey Ferrentino (U.S.) - Ugly Lies the Bone
Zodwa Nyoni (U.K.) - Boi Boi Is Dead
Heidi Schreck (U.S.) - Grand Concourse
Ruby Rae Spiegel (U.S.) - Dry Land
Tena Štivičić (U.K.and Croatia)- 3 Winters
The winner also receives a signed print by Willem de Kooning. Each of the additional finalists receives an award of $5,000.
Read Playbill.com's interview with D'Amour, about bringing New Orleans to New York in Airline Highway, here. Co-founded by Emilie S. Kilgore and William Blackburn, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize honors new English-language plays by women on an annual basis. It reflects the values and interests of Blackburn, an American actress and writer who lived in London during the last 15 years of her life.
Previous winners include Lucy Kirkwood's Chimerica, Annie Baker's The Flick, Jennifer Haley's The Nether, Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive, Chloe Moss's This Wide Night, Katori Hall's Hurt Village, Judith Thompson's Palace of the End, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's Behzti (Dishonour), Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House, Dael Orlandersmith's Yellowman, Julia Cho's The Language Archive, Gina Gionfriddo's U.S. Drag, Bridget Carpenter's Fall, Charlotte Jones' Humble Boy, Naomi Wallace's One Flea Spare, Wendy Kesselman's My Sister in this House, Jessica Goldberg's Refuge, Moira Buffini's Silence and Caryl Churchill's Serious Money.
The international panel of judges for the 2014-15 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize includes, in the U.S., actor Carmen Herlihy, director Liesl Tommy and Chay Yew, artistic director of Chicago's Victory Gardens Theatre. U.K. judges are BAFTA and Emmy award-winning actor Rebecca Hall, playwright Rona Munro and National Theatre associate director Bijan Sheibani.
Co-founded by Emilie S. Kilgore and William Blackburn, the award honors outstanding new English-language plays by women. Many of the winners have gone on to receive other honors, including Olivier, Lilly, Evening Standard and Tony Awards for Best Play. Eight Blackburn finalist plays have subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Visit blackburnprize.org for more information.
