Dr Sarah Grochala wins Women's Prize for Playwriting with her play 'Intelligence'

Congratulations to Dr Sarah Grochala, Senior Lecturer at Central and Course Leader for MA/MFA Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media, who has been awarded the 2023 Women’s Prize for Playwriting for her play Intelligence. 

The Women’s Prize for Playwriting showcases vivid, expansive and exquisitely crafted new plays by female and non-binary writers in the UK and Ireland. Each year, the Prize seeks out, celebrates and champions the bet new work from writers at all levels of experience. Its purpose is to bring about and sustain a more equitable sector as one step in the movement towards redressing the gender balance of plays produced in theatres. By seeking out, championing and staging extraordinary new plays by women and non-binary people, the Prize hopes to redefine and revitalise the canon for future generations. 

This year’s competition opened on 16 January 2023 and received over 1000 entries which were judged by the newly appointed Director of the National Theatre Indhu Rubasingham (Chair); journalist Samira Ahmed; playwrights April de Angelis and Chris Bush; actor Noma Dumezweni; literary agent Mel Kenyon; journalist and critic Anya Ryan; Head of Play Development at the National Theatre, Nina Steiger; and Guardian Editor-in-Chief Katharine Viner. 

The Prize is for a full-length play (defined as over 60 minutes in length), written in English and the winning playwright wins £12,000 in respect of an option for Ellie Keel Productions and Paines Plough to co-produce the winning play. The Prize is sponsored by Samuel French Ltd, a Concord Theatricals company, who are the official publishing partner of the prize, and by commercial theatre producers Fiery Angel. The Founding Sponsor is the leading recruitment agency, PER. 

Dr Grochala’s play Intelligence is a historical time-jumping science fiction play in which the Victorian computing pioneer Ada Lovelace struggles for recognition in a male-dominated world. The piece, which opens in 1840’s, follows Lovelace through a series of unexpected reincarnations, including to 1940’s American and 1980’s Silicon Valley. 

On winning the award, Dr Sarah Grochala said: 

“I’m absolutely thrilled that ‘Intelligence’ has won the Women’s Prize for Playwriting’. Since this award started a few years back, it’s been one that I’ve been dreaming of winning. As a woman, I still feel that we are unrepresented in theatre and in the wider media more generally. I really think it’s time that women had a chance to take centre stage and tell more of our stories in all their diversity and glory. And I feel that the Women’s Prize for Playwriting is playing a really important role in making that happen. You only have to look at the longlist to see the huge number of female playwrights writing brilliant plays that deserve a stage!” 

Dr Grochala is a multi-award winning neurodiverse Anglo-Polish playwright and dramaturg based in London. She writes bold poetic political plays about the experiences of ordinary people caught up in the whirlwind of big events. Her work has been supported and developed by The National Theatre Studio, Royal Shakespeare Company, The Orange Tree, Sphinx, Arts Council England, The Peggy Ramsay Foundation, The Orchard Project, the Studios Key West and OffWestEnd.com. Alongside her playwriting, she regularly writes audio dramas set in the worlds of Dr Who and The Avengers for Big Finish. Her books on theatre include The Contemporary Political Play and The Theatre of Rupert Goold. 

Find out more about Dr Sarah Grochala and the Women’s Prize for Playwriting at their respective websites. You can also find out more about Central’s MA/ MFA Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media here.