On Friday 20th March, Soho Theatre hosted the ceremony for the 2025 Tony Craze Award, featuring rehearsed readings from the highly commended, shortlisted and winning plays.
The Tony Craze Award is a new writing award named in honour of Soho Theatre’s former Artistic Director and first ever Verity Bargate Award winner. The Verity Bargate Award, sponsored by Character 7, is Soho Theatre’s flagship playwriting competition, currently open for submissions until Monday 13th April 2026.
Each year, the prize is open exclusively to writers enrolled in Soho Theatre’s Writers’ Lab – an entry level programme that guides new writers through the creation of a full length play over nine months. The winner receives a research and development period in one of Soho Theatre’s spaces, working alongside a director and actors to develop the play further. The award continues to champion one of Soho Theatre’s founding commitments: the support and development of artists and new writing, alongside its pillars of Theatre, Comedy, and Cabaret.
This year’s winner was FRANK and JEN by Chris Fung. The play follows a couple navigating a struggling family business, a baby on the way and a looming HMRC tax bill, tumbling through a darkly comic world of biohacking, ballet pigeons and corporate manipulation as they scramble to hold their lives together.
The three shortlisted plays were Manic Pixie Drag Queen by Jazmin Walters, a surreal exploration of identity and the roles we perform; TwinBond. by Déviniat Adedibu, which examines bond and betrayal between Nigerian-British twins navigating culture, gender and adulthood; and Goodbye Oestrogen by Jason Barker, in which a trans man going through menopause faces a new threat after a decades-old TV appearance resurfaces online.
The highly commended plays were Paint Water by Nina Bowers, a moving piece following the unlikely friendship between artist’s model Fanny Eaton and painter Simeon Solomon in 1859 London; and The Threat of a Storm by Kenya Sterling, which explores motherhood, grief and gender through the story of a mother caught up in the trial of her daughter’s killer, when the accused is her own child.
The ceremony closed with all shortlisted and longlisted writers taking to the stage together. The longlisted writers were Isabel Adomakoh Young, Eithne Garricks, Jennifer Leong, Hadsan Mohamud, Em Prendergast, Malini Raman-Middleton, Dan Sinclair, Harry Smith, Noor Sobka, Seema Yasmin and Nilgün Yusuf.
Previous winners include Zahra Dalilah with Anatomy of a Black Rebellion, Laith Elzubaidi with Insane Asylum Seekers, Maryam Garad with Reparations, Somebody Jones with All My Friends Are Dead, Louis Emmitt-Stern with Slippery, Fran Bushe with A Gig for Ghosts, Farah Najib with Dirty Dogs, Adam Narat for Birthright (renamed New Pacific), Phoebe Eclair-Powell with Fury, Charlie Josephine with Bitch Boxer, and Patrick Russell with Antlers.
WINNER
FRANK and JEN by Chris Fung
Directed by Jenny Bakst
Frank: Joe Barber
Jen: Anneika Rose
Lawyer/stage directions: Cade Brennan
SHORTLIST
Manic Pixie Drag Queen by Jazmin Walters
Directed by Jenny Bakst
Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Lilit Lesser
Indie Boy (TM): Yael Elisheva
TwinBond. by Déviniat Adedibu
Directed by Alessandro Babalola
Simi: Déviniat Adedibu
Kayode: Tobi King Bakare
Gbemi/Taurayi/Mumzy: Peace Oseyenum
Faith: Leanne Henlon
Goodbye Oestrogen by Jason Barker
Directed by Jules Haworth
Sam: AJ Stubberfield
Oestrogen: Kaysha Woollery
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Paint Water by Nina Bowers
Directed by Jenny Bakst
Fanny Eaton: Rebekah Murrell
Simeon Solomon: Joel Samuels
The Threat of a Storm by Kenya Sterling
Directed by Alessandro Babalola
Son: Sam Crerar
Mum: Debbie Korley
Susan: Jess Saunders
Patricia: Claire Louise Amias
Priest: Nicholas Khan