The Susan Smith Blackburn prize for female, transgender and non-binary playwrights has been awarded to the US writer ak payne for their poignant and funny two-hander Furlough’s Paradise.
The play has been described by payne as a “lyrical journey about grief, home and survival”. It follows two cousins, one of whom is on a three-day release from prison, as the pair attend a funeral in their childhood town.
“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,” said payne, namechecking past winners Katori Hall, Julia Cho, Lynn Nottage, Sarah Ruhl, Benedict Lombe and Paula Vogel. Those playwrights “have made it possible – through their words transcending space and time and/or their caring and abundant mentorship – for me to write,” payne added.
The award comprises $25,000 (£19,000) and a signed print by artist Willem de Kooning. Furlough’s Paradise was nominated for the prize by the Alliance theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, where the play had its premiere in 2024.
The Oscar winner Tarell Alvin McCraney, best known for the play and film versions of Moonlight, said Furlough’s Paradise charts “what it means to try to find a utopia in a world that has a criminal justice system that is far from perfect”. McCraney taught payne at the David Geffen school of drama at Yale Universityin Connecticut and said they are “one of the most powerful writers I’ve encountered in my time as a professor”. Next month, the play will be staged at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, where McCraney is artistic director.
The Susan Smith Blackburn prize has also given special commendations to 49 Days by Haruna Lee and An Oxford Man by Else Went. The other finalists this year, chosen from more than 200 submissions, included Chris Bush’s play Otherland, which is running at the Almeida theatre in London. Last year’s winner, the Tudor drama 1536 by Ava Pickett, opens at the Almeida in May.
The judges for the prize were costume designer Linda Cho; actors Indira Varma and Jennifer Ehle; Nancy Medina, artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic; playwright Mark Ravenhill; and George Strus, who founded the new work development and community building hub Breaking the Binary theatre in New York.
