Inaugural edition, 2026/2027

The Sabi Arts Playwright Prize is an annual award for a new play by a Nigerian playwright.

Sabi Arts has staged twelve productions in seven cities since 2018, beginning with an audience of twenty one people at the University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt. Our work has concerned itself with subjects Nigerian theatre has largely avoided: sex work, the women who confronted the oil companies of the Niger Delta, the arguments families conduct in private.

The Prize extends that work to writers outside the company. We welcome original full-length plays of all genres, themes, styles and subject areas.

Professor Julie Okoh was born in Ubiaja, Edo State, in 1947. She taught theatre theory at the University of Port Harcourt, held a Fulbright, and received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society of Nigerian Theatre Artists. Across a long career she wrote plays confronting the realities facing women in Nigerian society: female genital mutilation, domestic violence, sexual exploitation, and the silencing of women's voices.

The prize carrying her name is awarded to the best play written by a woman that centres the lives and experiences of women.

To be considered, tick the Julie Okoh Prize box when you submit.