The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting has announced the winners of its 2025 Awards.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025, the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting is a platform for discovering exceptional talent, in collaboration with the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.
Winners were announced on 21 July 2025 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, hosted by Julie Hesmondhalgh.
The winner of the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2025, receiving £20,000, is Tolu Okanlawon for his debut play Shooters.
This year’s other winners, each receiving £10,000, were: Judges Award winner Silva Semerciyan, for Przewalski’s Horses; the Bruntwood Prize International Award winner Jesús I Valles, for Spread; and the North West Original New Voice Award and Residency winner Daisy Miles, for R Lady’s.
The North West Original New Voice Award and Residency winner also has access to an additional £10,000 fund dedicated to their professional development at the Royal Exchange Theatre during their 12-month residency.
A special commendation also went to Terri Jade Donovan for Dog Dog Dog.
Other nominees from the shortlist of 15 plays selected for this year’s Prize included The Annunciation by T. Adamson, Dream Body by Natasha Collie, rite to party by Yasmine Dankwah, Talking to Boys by Abbi Greenland, Corpselight by Daniel Grimston, The Plan by Mary Elizabeth Hamilton, Coziness by Julia Jarcho, TRIM PALACE by Courttia Newland, Voyagers by Ava Wong Davies, and golf girl by Seayoung Yim.
This year’s judging panel was chaired by journalist and broadcaster Naga Munchetty, and the judges are: award-winning theatre-maker, director and producer and Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre, Selina Cartmell; previous Bruntwood Prize winner, Phoebe Eclair-Powell; award-winning playwright and director, Conor McPherson (The Brightening Air; The Hunger Games on Stage); international award-winning director and Artistic Director of London’s Kiln Theatre Amit Sharma; actors, Shobna Gulati and Cherylee Houston, and Munya Chawawa, a BAFTA-nominated broadcaster, writer and comedian, and 2022 British Comedy Awards Breakthrough Talent winner.
Also see the Bruntwood Prize longlist for 2025.
More about the winners and their plays
Shooters by Tolu Okanlawon
In 1940’s Harlem, African American photojournalist Gordon Parks attempts to document the lives of a gang of teenage boys for Life Magazine. SHOOTERS is an epic exploration of authenticity, masculinity and journalism as a mediator of reality – questioning who has the right to tell someone else’s story.
Tolu Okanlawon is a British-Nigerian writer from Hackney, East London. He has a taste for stories that bounce between fact and fiction.
A graduate of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama’s Writing for Stage and Screen MFA, Tolu’s work spans TV, film, documentary, and theatre.
Tolu was recently selected to be part of the Diverse Writers Development Programme 2025, a joint initiative from Left Bank Pictures and The National Film and Television School, with support from Sony Pictures Television, where he devised an original drama concept for TV.
Przewalski’s Horses by Silva Semerciyan
Alina has fled Kyiv and sought refuge with her estranged grandmother in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, but tensions rise with the unexpected arrival of a young man and a suspicious soldier. PRZEWALSKI’S HORSES hums with the persistent threat of history, exploring the fragile and dangerous ways we try to experience connection.
Silva Semerciyan is a playwright and lecturer that has lived in the UK for the past 25 years.
Her plays include I AND THE VILLAGE (Theatre 503), which was shortlisted for the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2011 and Best New Play at the Off West End Awards 2016; A QUEST FOR ARTHUR (National Theatre Let’s Play); THE LIGHT BURNS BLUE (Tonic Theatre); UNDER A CARDBOARD SEA, THE WINDOW and THE TINDERBOX (Bristol Old Vic Theatre); FLASHES (Young Vic Theatre); and GATHER YE ROSEBUDS (Nightingale Theatre), winner of Best New Play at the Brighton Fringe Festival 2013.
Silva’s first radio play VARANASI was shortlisted for a BBC Audio Drama Award.
She recently completed a PhD at the University of East Anglia focusing on Armenian women’s playwriting and now lectures in drama in South West England.
SPREAD by Jesús I. Valles
At a high school in Austin, four teenage boys gather at lunchtime to make ‘spread’ from their junk food snacks – they tease, play fight and talk big, but beneath the bravado lies deep insecurity and quietly pressing emotional needs. SPREAD is a profound and visceral window into the lives of boys on the brink of adulthood.
Jesús I. Valles (they/them) is a queer Mexican immigrant writer-performer from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua/El Paso, Texas.
They often write poems and plays about immigration, sex, citizenship, desire, mourning, friendship, food, fat and Mexicans.
Jesús is the winner of a 2023 Princess Grace Award in Theater, the 2023 Yale Drama Series (BATHHOUSE.PPTX), the 2022 Kernodle Playwriting Prize (A RIVER, ITS MOUTHS) and the 2022 Emerging Theatre Professional by the National Theatre Conference.
Their playwriting has received support from The Bushwick Starr, Clubbed Thumb, The Flea, The Lortel, Manhattan Theatre Club, OUTsider Festival, The Playwrights’ Center, The Playwrights Realm, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Teatro Vivo and The VORTEX.
As a poet, they have received fellowships from Community of Writers, Idyllwild Arts, Lambda Literary, Tin House, and Undocupoets.
Jesús is a Resident Playwright at New Dramatists and a Writing Freedom fellow with Haymarket Books.
R Lady’s by Daisy Miles
At Our Lady’s Catholic Primary School in Stockport, three girls start reenacting scenes from Jesus’ crucifixion, but what starts out as harmless fun soon descends into cruel acts of violence. R LADY’S is a funny and disturbing examination of innocence and power.
Daisy Miles is a playwright, producer, graphic designer and journalist from Stockport.
Daisy uses comedy to approach the naughty, embarrassing, and grotesque. She’s interested in exposing humanity with absurdity and finding truth in the improbable and unlikely.
Daisy studied Creative Writing and Drama at the University of East Anglia and is an alumnus of Menagerie Theatre Company’s Young Writers’ Workshop. She is currently training as part of the Royal Exchange Theatre’s Young Company of Writers.
Her short plays include CAT O NINE TALE (Cambridge Junction), THE AMBIGUOUS DIVINITY OF SARAH CHOOK (Off Main Stage) and REVERSE COWGIRL (Itchy Feet). Daisy is the founder of NOT LONG, an interdisciplinary artists’ network and production company creating hybrid theatre and nightlife events.
R LADY’s is Daisy’s first full-length play.
DOG DOG DOG by Terri Jade Donovan
A young Mancunian girl is starting to think she might be a dog – she’s rapidly retreating into a canine fantasy world alongside her pet dog Pup to escape reality. DOG DOG DOG is a pulsating and unpredictable journey into the complexity of childhood trauma and neglect.
Terri Jade Donovan is a disabled, hard of hearing and neurodivergent actor, writer, and theatre maker from Stockport.
Terri often writes dark comedies, exploring feminism and historical narratives through a disabled lens. Terri is passionate about access, and is an advocate for DDN (Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent) voices.
Terri began learning how to write plays under the mentorship of Tim Foley as part of the Royal Exchange Theatre’s Young Company of Writers. They have since taken part in writers’ groups at Sheffield Theatres, Pentabus and the Abbey Theatre, National Theatre of Ireland.
Terri’s work has received support from Jermyn Street Theatre, Bewley’s Cafe Theatre and CRIPtic Arts.
As an actor, Terri trained at RADA and The Lir Academy.
DOG DOG DOG is also a finalist for Theatre 503’s International Playwriting Award 2024/25.
Related News
Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2025 longlist announced
The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2022 announced
Latest News
Broadway legend Patti LuPone returns to the London Coliseum for Valentine’s Day 2027
Helen of Troy never got to tell her side. Watch the trailer for the play that does
After a sell-out world tour, The Choir of Man returns to the West End this Christmas
