Sydney Theatre Company is inviting applications from Australia’s talented playwrights for the 2020 Patrick White Playwrights Award and expressions of interest for the Patrick White Playwrights Fellowship. The prizes are designed to benefit both emerging and established writers and have a total prize pool of $32,500.

The Patrick White Playwrights Award has been an annual initiative of the Sydney Theatre Company since 2000. It is held in honour of Patrick White’s contribution to Australian theatre and to foster the development of Australian playwrights.

In 2010 an additional prize, the Patrick White Playwrights Fellowship, was introduced to recognise and support more established Australian playwrights.

The Patrick White Playwrights Award offers a cash prize of $7,500 for a full-length unproduced play of any genre written by an Australian playwright over 18 years of age. The readers and judges assessing the scripts seek a work that is original and ambitious with strong theatrical potential. Previous Award-winners include Keziah Warner, Mark Rogers, Kim Ho, Anna Barnes and Melissa Bubnic.

The Patrick White Playwrights Fellowship is a position for an established Australian playwright whose work has been produced professionally in Australia within the last four years. The winning playwright receives a total prize package of $25,000 which includes a
year-long Fellowship in recognition of their excellent body of work, and a commission to write a new play. Previous Fellows include Anchuli Felicia King, Nakkiah Lui, Sue Smith, Andrew Bovell, Tommy Murphy and Kate Mulvany.

Winners of both the Award and the Fellowship will be announced at an event in May 2021 along with a reading of the Patrick White Playwrights Award winning play.

Closing date for entries to both the Award and the Fellowship is Monday 23 November 2020
at 5pm. For more information: https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/patrickwhite