CLIMat play-wrtiting prize

 FUll Detials

e Climate Playwriting Prize 2026 will uncover the most exciting new plays about the climate crisis, and support them to find their audiences. 

We believe that playwrights have a vital role to play in the conversation around the climate. Theatre is a space for animating audiences, forming communities, and experimenting with form; a space for processing the past, articulating the present, and imagining the future. In order to surface the breadth and diversity of new stories about this planetary moment, the Climate Playwriting Prize is an open invitation to playwrights to respond creatively to this subject matter. Regional and touring theatre is playing a vital role in engaging audiences, and we are partnering with organisations all around the country to deliver workshops to writers, unlocking how they might want to tell their climate story.

This moment is marked by rising temperatures, escalating impacts of change on communities and ecosystems, but also by the potential for us to transform society for a flourishing, equitable future for all life. The need for new stories that help audiences grapple with the realities and possibilities of this crisis has never been clearer

In order to surface the breadth and diversity of new stories about this planetary moment, the Climate Playwriting Prize is an open invitation to playwrights to respond creatively to this subject matter. We are partnering with organisations all around the country to deliver workshops to writers, unlocking how they might want to tell their climate story.

The Climate Playwriting Prize 2026 is funded by Climate Spring

A partnership between:

Climate Playwriting Prize Associate Partners:

What are we looking for?

We are looking for the best plays that engage meaningfully with the climate crisis.

For this prize, ‘climate’ is defined expansively: it includes the natural world and environmental change, but also the social, political, and cultural conditions connected to it. We are open to all approaches to this subject matter: the climate should be an important dramaturgical element of the play, with an impact on character and/or plot, but it doesn’t need to be the only theme. We are particularly interested in plays that go beyond explaining the problem, to explore what responding to the crisis means for us as people.

Although the Globe is leading the prize, we encourage playwrights to develop scripts without a specific stage in mind – the prize producers will support the onward journey of the play to the most appropriate home.

Submitted plays:

• Should be full length plays, of 70 minutes or longer
• Should be written by UK and UK-based playwrights in the English language 
• Should not have had a previous production
• We will accept work for adults, and family work. Work written specifically for children and musicals are ineligible. Beyond this, plays may be written in any genre – we actively encourage playwrights to think about how to expand what our thinking of what climate work might look like
• Must not be straight adaptations of existing material, and writers must own all of the copyright of their work. We will consider plays that are in conversation with existing material. 
• This award is aimed at writers and theatre practitioners who have already demonstrated a commitment to script-based mediums (theatre, radio or screen), with some professional experience. This could include production experience (including fringe), commission, talent development schemes or work staged through R&D or scratch performances. 
• You do not need to write specifically for the Globe’s stages. The winner will be chosen based on merit and suitability for production, and the decision won’t be taken with a specific stage in mind.  
• May be in an early draft, or in an early stage in their development