Bruntwood Prize at 20: how the competition became vital to the UK’s new-writing ecology

This kind of connection building is key to the ethos of the Bruntwood Prize, says Suzanne Bell, the dramaturg at both the Royal Exchange Theatre, which is the prize’s main partner, and on the prize itself. “A lot of our readers are directors, and if a director reads a play they really like they can write a star next to it,” she explains. “Then at the end, we get in touch with the writer and introduce them to the director… hopefully to forge relationships that go on to productions elsewhere.” They also do a geographical breakdown of the longlist to encourage writers across the country to build links with theatres and creatives working in the area. “What we try to do is make it so it isn’t all about the winner… We want to support the wider ecology of new writing.”

Bell explains the judging process in detail, and it sounds like a mammoth task. Overall, a team of more than 100 readers from a range of different ages, disciplines and backgrounds is employed; “it is where the biggest element of the budget goes”, she says, with every reader put through what Bell describes as “an extensive training package”. Then, the plays are sent through a five-phrase reading process, where they are “rigorously” assessed. “So, if you’ve made the shortlist, your play will have been championed by about 15 to 20 people,” she explains.

At the core of the judging process of the Bruntwood Prize is anonymity. Every writer submits their play under a pseudonym, with the team going to huge lengths to ensure that the plays cannot be traced back to any particular name – a member of the team Googles the title of every script on the longlist before it is announced on the website, and if there is even the slightest hint of it online, they’ll ask for an alternative. “It is one of the founding principles of the prize,” Bell says. “I don’t think it will change.”

The idea that their writing will be judged blind is a big draw for many writers. Phoebe Eclair-Powell, who had entered two years previously and “got nowhere” before being announced as winner in 2019 for her play Shed: Exploded View, was grateful for her work to be read on its merits alone. “I was quite pleased I was able to enter a prize where no one would know my mum was my mum [she is the daughter of comedian Jenny Eclair],” she says. “She doesn’t work in theatre but she is in the entertainment industry… it was nice to know I was being judged just on the play.”

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It is not a faultless process, though. The Bruntwood Prize’s first shortlist was all male and there have often been years with limited racial diversity. “I can understand that for some people it doesn’t remove a lot of the barriers that exist in society just because it is anonymous,” Eclair-Powell continues. “It’s not foolproof, but I do think it was done in the spirit of inclusion.”

“It is something we’re thinking about constantly, endlessly,” Bell adds. “What we can control is the pipeline of the reading process, the training of the readers and the judges… it’s not something we take lightly.”

The three writers I meet speak in almost universally positive ways about their experiences with the Bruntwood Prize. But their enthusiasm says something about the state of new writing more broadly, too. All three agree that without the support of the prize, their careers would probably not be in the same position. “It is awkward”, Queeley-Dennis says, “when people ask me how to become a writer, am I supposed to say, oh just enter a prize.”

It is clearly something Bell also thinks about. “Since Covid, it has been really hard for writers to find homes and journeys and pathways,” she says. “We don’t think the prize can exist in isolation.”

For its 20th anniversary, then, the Bruntwood Prize has returned bigger than ever. The prize fund pot has increased to £50,000, with the overall winner set to receive £20,000 of the total, but there’s been more focus placed on how the team can support writers in their process, too.

It has developed the ‘Nine Months to Birth Your Play’ initiative, which is a series of online resources, written by professionals, to guide playwrights through their creative journeys. “A play is like a baby you’re giving birth to,” says Bell. “It is vulnerable and it demands you to be both vulnerable and strong.”

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The online resources, which so far have been released as a series of written guides and exercises – although Bell promises there are more live-streamed video sessions on the way – aim to offer practical advice. There are pages like the one written by playwright Rafaella Marcus on dramatic action and event, which encourage writers to take part in exercises at home. One suggests writers find ways to drive along their plot by asking questions such as “What is the worst possible thing that could happen now?” and then swapping out “worst” for another word like “best, funniest, darkest”. “Somewhere in the myriad possibilities of things that could happen will be something that turns a little lightbulb on for you,” Marcus writes.

There are other resources, too. Mia Chung has written a workshop on story and idea, while Jasmine Naziha Jones has created one on character development. There are also sessions written by a psychologist, Anna Webster, honing in on both the inner thinking of people that exist within a play and also on the mental struggle it can take to put pen to paper. “She looks at both the psychology of drama but also the psychology of your journey… so there are sessions on mindfulness, and the position of shame a writer might feel and how to hold that,” Bell explains.

These sorts of resources have helped Bruntwood winners of the past. Eclair-Powell talks passionately about a YouTube tutorial led by past Bruntwood winner Anna Jordan, which gave her solid tips on rewriting, which she used for Shed. “I still go back to it now if I need inspiration,” she says.

Eclair-Powell owes so much of her career to the Bruntwood that she’s returning this year as one of the judges. “The idea of getting this group of really exciting shortlisted plays just landing in my inbox is a real treat,” she says. So, what’s the advice she would give to writers thinking about entering? “Oh my God, do it,” she laughs. “Sometimes as a writer you can feel a little bit left out of the cult, but the prize makes you feel like you’re part of a big family."

Entries are now open for the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2025. Submissions close on January 9.