US playwright scoops 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

Commenting on their win, payne said: "I am so grateful to receive this award and join a list of some of my favourite writers, whose plays have shaken how I understand the world and who have made it possible – through their words transcending space and time and/or their caring and abundant mentorship – for me to write: Katori Hall, Julia Cho, Lynn Nottage, Sarah Ruhl, Benedict Lombe and Paula Vogel to name a very select few."

Prize executive director Leslie Swackhamer added: "At this moment in our history as a country, and as a prize that honours women, trans and non-binary writers, we must acknowledge the very real threats that are being aimed at our hard-won freedoms. 

"We must remind ourselves of the power of our voices, and the special magic we create when we lift them at the theatre. Every voice on our stage tonight deserves to be honoured, celebrated and heard."

Fresh from its win, Furlough’s Paradise is to enjoy its West Coast premiere this April at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. 

In his season announcement, Geffen artistic director Tarell Alvin McCraney said: "This play is poetic and funny, but it’s also charting what it means to try to find a utopia in a world that has a criminal justice system that is far from perfect."

The judging panel for the 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize comprised actors Indira Varma and Jennifer Ehle, Bristol Old Vic artistic director Nancy Medina, playwright Mark Ravenhill, costume designer Linda Cho and Breaking the Binary Theatre founder George Strus.

Special commendations, worth $10,000, were presented to Haruna Lee for 49 Days and Else Went for An Oxford Man.