Sabi Arts Limited has launched the Sabi Arts Playwright Prize, an annual award for new and emerging Nigerian playwrights, with a total prize pool of ₦1,400,000, a full stage production for the top winner, and a digital anthology of selected plays. Submissions opened on 1 October and close on 20 December 2026.

The prize is open to Nigerian playwrights aged 18 and above, living in Nigeria or in the diaspora, for original plays that have never been published or produced. The Grand Prize of ₦1,000,000 goes to the best play and includes script development and a live production with Ouida Lagos within 36 months of the announcement. The Runner-Up Prize of ₦200,000 recognises outstanding theatrical craft. Both come with automatic entry into Sabi Arts’ next writers’ residency.

A third award, the Julie Okoh Prize of ₦200,000, is named for Professor Julie Okoh, one of Nigeria’s foremost women playwrights, a Professor of Theatre Theory at the University of Port Harcourt, and a recipient of the Society of Nigerian Theatre Artists’ Lifetime Achievement Award. It honours a play by a woman playwright that centres women’s experiences and engages with women’s issues. The winner receives a professionally developed stage reading by Sabi Arts within 12 months, subject to its production calendar, plus residency entry.

Entries will pass through a three-stage blind review. An anonymous readers’ group selects the longlist, a second reading round produces the shortlist, and a final jury picks the winners. The inaugural jury is Farah Lawal Harris, playwright and artistic director of Young Playwrights’ Theater; Kelvin Mary Ndukwe, creative director and producer and founder of 1000 Stories; Rufus Nwoko, artistic director of New Culture Studio; and Kesiena C. Obue, playwright, director, and founder of Kessavier Vanille Productions. The longlist will be announced on 31 January 2027, the shortlist on 28 February, and the winners on 31 March.

Sabi Arts will also publish a digital Sabi Arts Playwright Prize Anthology featuring the three winning scripts and three additional shortlisted plays chosen by the jury, meant to give new playwrights a durable record and introduce them to readers, educators, and practitioners.

The prize grows out of the work of Sabi Arts founder Ibi Kontein, a Nigerian researcher, playwright, producer, and director who is completing a PhD in International Relations at American University. She founded the company in 2018, and her productions include Back For Ground, staged at the MUSON Centre in Lagos, and Dear Applicant, a job-seeking satire that debuted in the UK at Theatre Peckham. Kontein says the prize extends her commitment to “deliberate, socially engaged theatre” by investing directly in dramatists capturing contemporary African life.

Submit your play here.

Further details and enquiries are available at sabiarts.org or playwrightsprize@sabiarts.org.