Mainstage Prize for Playwriting
Submit Your Play!
Submissions Open: 10:00 May 15th, 2026
Submissions Close: 23:00 August 1st, 2026
Check back here to find the submission portal when submissions open.
How it Works
Theme for 2026
Horror
The Prize
A £10,000 cash award, a rehearsed reading of the winning play, and mentorship opportunities with members of the judging panel.
Shortlist
Six writers will be shortlisted, with three finalists selected from the shortlist.
Prize Giving Event
The three finalists will present rehearsed readings of their plays at the Prize Giving event, where the overall winner will be announced.
What to Submit
Writers should submit a full-length horror play (approximately 70–120 minutes).
The play must be:
Original, written in English
Unproduced and unpublished
Not previously awarded any prizes
Not based on existing intellectual property or adaptations
What We’re Looking For
The Mainstage Prize champions playwrights who are thinking big. We’re interested in plays that:
Have a strong sense of story, character, and theatrical momentum
Use horror as a powerful storytelling engine
Could realistically be staged at scale and engage a broad audience
Combine ambition, clarity, and emotional impact
We encourage writers to explore horror in all its forms — psychological, political, supernatural, or social — but the work should clearly engage with fear, dread, unease, or the darker edges of human experience, and feel unmistakably theatrical and audience-facing.
Eligibility
To enter the Mainstage Prize, playwrights must:
Be 18 years or older
Be based in the UK or Ireland
Have had at least one professional stage production (a run of four weeks or more with paid cast and crew)
Own the copyright to the submitted play and be free to submit it
Dates
Submissions Open: 10:00 May 15th, 2026
Submissions Close: 23:00 August 1st, 2026