Sabi Arts Limited Launches Sabi Arts Playwright Prize for Nigerian Playwrights

Sabi Arts Limited recently launched the inaugural Sabi Arts Playwright Prize, an annual award for Nigerian playwrights. This prize will recognise new and original writing for the stage, offers ₦1,400,000 in cash awards, a full stage production, and an inaugural digital anthology for emerging voices. 

The Sabi Arts Limited-prize is keen to discover, elevate, and support new and emerging Nigerian playwrights. According to the organizers, the prize was created to turn attention toward the writers behind the stage, seek original plays with compelling storytelling, distinctive voices, and exceptional theatrical craft, and provide a concrete platform for playwrights to move their work from the page to live audiences. 

The Sabi Arts Playwright Prize builds directly upon the foundational vision of Ibi Kontein, its founder, a Nigerian researcher, playwright, theatre producer, and director completing her PhD in International Relations at American University. Having established Sabi Arts in 2018, Kontein’s work bridges the gap between empirical policy research and stage performance, confronting critical realities often left outside mainstream theatrical focus: sex work, religion, political autonomy, the women who confronted oil companies in the Niger Delta, and the quiet arguments families conduct in private.

Research, according to Kontein, allows her to test claims against outcomes, but theatre puts an audience in a room with the person those claims are actually about. “The Sabi Arts Playwright Prize extends this commitment to deliberate, socially engaged theatre by investing directly in the dramatists capturing contemporary African life in all its complexity,” she expressed. Kontein’s own stage productions including Back For Ground (staged at the MUSON Centre in Lagos) and the job-seeking satire Dear Applicant (which made its UK debut at Theatre Peckham) have been staged across Lagos, Ogun, Port Harcourt, London, and Edinburgh. 

Nigerian playwrights aged 18 and above residing in Nigeria or the diaspora can apply for The Sabi Arts Playwrights Prize. The prize is open to original, previously unpublished, and unproduced plays. The inaugural edition features a total cash prize pool of ₦1,400,000 alongside residency, production, and publication opportunities structured into three winning categories: The Grand Prize of ₦1,000,000 which will be warded to the best original play, complete with script development for production in collaboration with Ouida Lagos before a live audience within 36 months of announcement, and automatic entry into Sabi Arts’ next writer’s residency program. Secondly, the Runner-Up Prize of ₦200,000 will be awarded for outstanding theatrical craft, accompanied by automatic entry into Sabi Arts’ next writer’s residency program. Lastly, the ₦200,000 Julie Okoh Prize named after Professor Julie Okoh one of Nigeria’s foremost women playwrights, will honor a play written by a woman playwright that centers women’s experiences and meaningfully engages with women’s issues. This includes a professionally developed stage reading by Sabi Arts within 12 months (subject to production calendar) and automatic entry into Sabi Arts’ next writer’s residency program. The Julie Okoh Prize is an additional recognition within the Playwright Prize honoring the eponym and her legacy in using theatre to confront critical issues affecting women. 

The Julie Okoh Prize.

Interested Nigerian playwrights can start submitting their manuscripts as the submission window opened on the 1st October 2026 and will close on 20th December 2026. Longlisted playwrights will be announced on 31st January 2027  while shortlisted writers announced on 28th February 2027, and winners announced on 31st March 2027. 

Eligible entries will undergo a three-stage blind review process: An initial reading stage by an anonymous readers’ group to determine the longlist, a second reading stage to select the shortlist, and the final jury deliberations to determine the winners. The inaugural jury consists of renowned theatre and literary practitioners across dramatic writing, directing, production, and artistic leadership: Farah Lawal Harris, Playwright; Artistic Director, Young Playwrights’ Theater; Kelvin Mary Ndukwe, Creative Director and Producer; Founder, 1000 Stories; Rufus Nwoko, Artistic Director, New Culture Studio, and Kesiena C. Obue, playwright and Director; Founder, Kessavier Vanille Productions 

The Sabi Arts Prize for Playwrights is conceived as a developing platform for new theatre. As part of this vision, Sabi Arts will digitally publish the inaugural Sabi Arts Playwright Prize Anthology, a curated collection featuring the three winning scripts and three additional shortlisted plays selected by the jury. The anthology will provide a durable literary record and introduce new playwrights to readers, educators, practitioners, and wider audiences.