This year we received 1,898 submissions to the 2017 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting. Since the June 5th deadline the plays have been through a  rigorous process, proceeding though three stages of reading to make it to the longlist.

Over the last four months we have employed over 95 readers including Artistic Directors, dramaturges, senior readers at the Royal Court and National Theatre, Literary Managers of National Theatre of Scotland, Traverse Theatre, Orange Tree Theatre, Finborough Theatre, previous winners, national critics and theatre commentators and internationally based playwrights.

We are now delighted to announce the top 100 longlist! Congratulations to all participants, including those who haven’t made it to the longlist this year. Its been a fascinating process.

Please remember, if you are in the longlist your play is also currently up for discussion for the shortlist of top ten plays. Please don’t throw away your anonymity yet. We will be in touch with the shortlist via telephone before the end of the week and the shortlisted playwrights will not be announced to the press until October 24th, to allow for the last stage of the judging process to take place with total anonymity for all playwrights.

All of the top 100 longlist will receive a Royal Exchange script report and a Bruntwood Prize 2017 longlist badge before the end of 2017, we will be in touch via the email address supplied on submitting your script.

I’m afraid we can’t enter into any correspondence about where your script reached in the reading process, or provide feedback to scripts not in the top 100 longlist.

2017 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2017 Longlist