- 6 shortlisted playwrights: Ava Wong Davies, Billie Collins, Elham Ehsas, Philippa Lawford, Robert Akodoto, and Tife Kusoro
- 16 playwrights longlisted: Aisling Towl, Alex Medland, Annie Jenkins, Asa Haynes, Chloe Yates, Farah Najib, Francis Grin, Héctor Manchego, Jacob Hodgkinson, Joel Samuels, Jonathan Neil, Liz Bacon, Rebecca Banatvala, Rhianna Adesuwa Ilube, Sid Sagar, and Suleyman Wellings-Longmore
- Winner to be announced at Soho Theatre ceremony on 20 October
- Judging panel: Beth Steel, Bryony Kimmings, Monica Ali, Roy Williams, and Rufus Norris, chaired by Character 7’s Stephen Garrett
- The Verity Bargate Award is sponsored by Character 7
Following a record-breaking number of 2,219 new plays submitted, Soho Theatre today announces the 6 shortlisted and 16 longlisted plays for this year’s Verity Bargate Award. The new playwriting prize, sponsored by Character 7, is Soho Theatre’s flagship new writing award with the winning play produced in a full production on our stages.
The winner and the Character 7 Commision will be announced at a ceremony at Soho Theatre on 20 October. The winner will receive £12,000 for an exclusive option for Soho Theatre to produce the prize-winning play, and a full London run of the play staged at Soho Theatre. The Character 7 Commission, selected by Verity Bargate Award sponsor Character 7 in consultation with Soho Theatre, includes a commission by Soho Theatre to join the 2027 cohort of writers on Soho ReDraft, a programme aimed at supporting playwrights in developing existing first drafts of their plays into production-ready scripts.
The shortlisted plays feature: two Taliban fighters atop an ancient Budha statue engaging in banter, prayer and debate; a love story between two souls spanning hundreds of years; the tumultuous life of a young boy in foster care; the sacrifices made during crunch period at a South London indie video game studio; a contemporary retelling of the Greek myth of Ajax set in a water company; and a spiritual awakening on a Texan farm.
The shortlisted plays are:
- The Faithfuls by Elham Ehsas
- The History by Tife Kusoro
- The Last of the Watermelon Kid by Robert Akodoto
- Voyagers by Ava Wong Davies
- Water After Ajax by Billie Collins
- The Wilderness by Philippa Lawford
The longlisted plays are:
- attack of the 50ft black woman by Asa Haynes
- Aunties in the USSR by Rebecca Banatvala
- Black Holes by Suleyman Wellings-Longmore
- Forest People by Rhianna Adesuwa Ilube
- How a Sting Tracks, Post-Show Talk by Jacob Hodgkinson
- Mad Youth Organise by Chloe Yates
- Misandry by Jonathan Neil
- Night Side by Farah Najib
- Remember, Remember by Sid Sagar
- Ripe by Annie Jenkins
- Softboy by Aisling Towl
- SPUNK by Héctor Manchego
- Things That Might Become by Liz Bacon
- Third Culture Kid by Francis Grin
- This Play Has Nothing to Do With the 20th Century novel Mephisto, by Klaus Mann (Because That is About Nazis and Therefore Does Not Apply) by Joel Samuels
- We’re Gonna Kill Billy by Alex Medland
NOTES TO EDITORS
Headshots available here.
About the Verity Bargate Award
Launched in 1981, the Verity Bargate Award is Soho Theatre’s flagship playwrighting competition, sponsored by Character 7 in a long-term partnership now spanning five editions. It is one of the longest-established playwrighting awards in the UK and the only award to guarantee the winning play a fully staged production in one of Soho Theatre’s stages in their central London venue. The award honours Verity Bargate, Soho’s co-founder who passionately championed new writing during her time at the small but hugely influential fringe theatre company, Soho Poly.
For 50 years Soho Theatre has championed new writing, from lunch time plays in the 1970s to today’s commissions, attachments, Writers’ Labs and awards. Open to new and emerging UK and Irish writers, the Verity Bargate Award uncovers the best new plays and launches the careers of some of Britain’s most established playwrights and screenwriters. Previous winners and nominees include Eoin McAndrew (Little Brother at Soho Theatre, 2025), Sam Grabiner (Boys on the Verge of Tears at Soho Theatre, 2024), Nathan Ellis (Super High Resolution at Soho Theatre, 2022), Amanda Wilkin (Shedding a Skin at Soho Theatre, 2021 & 2022), Matt Charman (A Night at the Dogs, 2004), Vicky Jones (The One at Soho Theatre, 2014), Toby Whithouse (Jump Mr Malinoff Jump, 1998) and many, many more.
About Soho Theatre
SOHO THEATRE is London’s most vibrant producer for new theatre, comedy and cabaret. Our central London venue in Soho recently celebrated 25 years as one of the UK’s busiest with a buzzing bar, lively audiences and an entertaining year-round festival programme with a queer, punk, counter-culture flavour. Our second London venue SOHO THEATRE WALTHAMSTOW opened in May 2025, bringing our vibrant programme to its biggest stage yet. Work extends beyond our venues with a full touring programme and connections with New York, Melbourne and Mumbai. Edinburgh Festival Fringe is a huge part of our year, we present many shows and scout hundreds more and we are the UK’s leading presenter of comedians from India. Our filmed comedy specials can be seen on international airlines and online. And our artist development and participation programmes are as important as the work on our stages. Soho Theatre is a charity and social enterprise. Soho Theatre Walthamstow is a community interest company. sohotheatre.com / @sohotheatre.
About Character 7
Character 7 is an award-winning independent production company based in London.
Founded by Stephen Garrett, whose credits as Executive Producer include The Night Manager, Spooks, Eastern Promises and Culprits, the company is driven by a deep belief in the power of great writing and the importance of nurturing talent. Character 7 champions both established and emerging voices; collaborating with leading screenwriters, directors, and the next generation of storytellers shaping the future of screen drama.
Reflecting its long-term commitment to discovering and supporting new writers, Character 7 is the headline sponsor of Soho Theatre’s Verity Bargate Award and the Royal Court’s Open Submission Festival.
Renowned for producing intelligent, stylish, and emotionally charged drama, Character 7 has worked with the BBC, AMC, HBO, Lionsgate, Starz, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ to deliver globally acclaimed series including The Night Manager, Culprits, The Undoing, and The Rook.
Season 1 of The Night Manager was nominated for twelve Emmys and won three Golden Globes. Season 2 – once again led by Garrett as Executive Producer – arrived on screens around the world in January 2026.
BIOGRAPHIES
SHORTLIST
Ava Wong Davies – Voyagers
‘I’m just looking at my life and I’m looking at all the avenues and I’m saying. That was one of them. I’m just thinking about that. It’s neither good or bad, it’s just. Life. I look at it, and almost all of it is intertwined with you. Every milestone, every adult birthday. And I can’t see where I start and end.’
Ava Wong Davies’s screenwriting credits include Industry Season 3, Season 4, and Season 5 (HBO/BBC), The Girlfriend (Amazon Prime), and The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power Season 3 (Amazon Prime). She has projects in development with Netflix UK, Netflix US, Amazon Prime UK, and Disney Plus. Her theatre credits include Graceland (Royal Court Upstairs).
She is one of Variety’s 2025 10 Brits to Watch, a 2024 MacDowell Fellow and the winner of the 2022 Ambassador Theatre Group’s Playwriting Prize.
Billie Collins – Water After Ajax
‘Nobody thinks, “I do like to be beside the seaside… So long as it’s full of turd.”’
Billie Collins is a writer from the Wirral, based in Manchester. Their previous work includes: The Walrus Has a Right to Adventure (Liverpool Everyman), Peak Stuff (ThickSkin Theatre), episodes of Malory Towers series 5 and 6 (King Bert Productions for CBBC), and Too Much World at Once (Box of Tricks Theatre). Billie is part of the 2026 Little Chick Emerging Writers cohort and is a graduate of the BBC Writersroom Northern Voices scheme. Billie previously led the Young Writers programme at the Royal Exchange Theatre, and their plays are published by Nick Hern Books.
Elham Ehsas – The Faithfuls
‘ They all thought they were right. Every single one of them. They were so sure.
– Like us.
– Except we’re right.’
Elham Ehsas is a BAFTA-nominated, Oscar-shortlisted writer and director drawn to the quiet moments that split a life in two. His short film Yellow was BAFTA-nominated and Oscar-shortlisted in 2024. There Will Come Soft Rains followed, winning Best Film at both Raindance and Encounters Film Festival. His documentary Forgotten Spaceman, produced with Ken Loach’s Sixteen Films, premiered at Locarno this year followed by Toronto Film Festival, and his debut feature Our Kind of Love is in development with the BFI.
Alongside directing, he has worked as Second Unit Director on The Crown, and as an actor in The Agency, Shantaram, Homeland, Unforgotten, and the West End and New York productions of The Jungle.
Philippa Lawford – The Wilderness
‘We’re going crazy. We can’t stop ourselves. We’re in heat.’
Philippa is a British-Texan writer and director. Her debut play, Ikaria, toured the UK in 2023 and was published by Methuen Drama, winning an OFFIE Short Run Commendation and a runner-up prize from the ATG Playwrights’ Prize. Her second play, Cold Water, was also published by Methuen and had an OFFIE-nominated run at the Park Theatre in 2024. In 2025, Cold Water was staged in downtown NYC by Little Engine Theater, directed by Michael Herwitz. Philippa has taken part in the Soho Theatre Studio Writers’ Group and the Royal Court Theatre Writers’ Group. She is represented by Julia Tyrrell Management (UK) and CAA (US).
Robert Akodoto – The Last of the Watermelon Kid
‘The one phrase which guaranteed you a one-way ticket out of any sh*tty foster house…
When I turn eighteen. I am going to kill myself.
Ooh, do you feel that energy leave the room?’
Robert Akodoto is a British-Nigerian writer and actor from Nottingham who trained at The Television Workshop and The Oxford School of Drama. On screen, he has appeared in shows such as Netflix’s Everything Now. As a writer, he draws on lived experience to explore identity and belonging through comedy — pushing humour as far as it will go before letting it tip into drama. His work includes GenerationSnowflake, a TV comedy about a young man who runs away to the sex-filled wilderness of gap-yearing Thailand in search of his ethnic roots, and The Last of the Watermelon Kid — adapted for both TV and theatre — a comedy about a 17-year-old foster child determined to end his life on his eighteenth birthday.
Tife Kusoro – The History
‘I didn’t have a clue what freedom was supposed to feel like but I knew to God I would feel it when I saw your face again.’
Tife Kusoro is a Nigerian-British writer and performer. Her debut play, G, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in August 2024, and won the George Devine Award. Her work has also received the Playwrights ’73 Award and the Lynne Gagliano Writers’ Award and she was recently a writer on attachment at the Royal Court Theatre, supported by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation.
LONGLIST
Aisling Towl – Softboy
‘I like it when people get angry. It’s human. I can only be flattered if someone is riled up by my work, if it stirs something in you. The only offensive response is indifference.’
Aisling Towl is a playwright and poet from South London. She is an alumnus of the Royal Court Intro Group and the Jerwood HighTide Writers Group. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Bridpoint Prize, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and published in journals including Basket Magazine, And Other Poems and Seaford Review. Aisling studied History at Goldsmiths, was the 2024-25 Peter Shaffer playwright-in-residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, and is a 2026 Hawthornden Fellow.
Alex Medland – We’re Gonna Kill Billy
‘Well, we can’t un-kidnap him’
Alex Medland is an award-winning playwright from Aotearoa/New Zealand, now based in Edinburgh. She tends to write about problematic women in disastrous situations. In 2024, her play Becoming Jeff Bezos won her Playmarket New Zealand’s b425 Award. She went on to write We’re Gonna Kill Billy which won the 2025 Adam New Zealand Play Award for Best Play, Best Play by a Māori Playwright and Best Play by a Woman. She is currently the youngest person to have won the Adam Award in its 19-year history. In the UK, We’re Gonna Kill Billy was shortlisted for The Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2025, longlisted for The Bruntwood Prize 2025, and recently read at The Royal Court Theatre’s Open Submission Festival. She is one of the founding members of Half Trick Theatre, a kiwi theatre dedicated to making irreverent reinventions of untouchable classics.
Annie Jenkins – Ripe
‘You look so much like your dad’
Annie’s first play In Lipstick was shortlisted for the Theatre503 Award and co-produced by Up in Arms/Ellie Keel/Pleasance in January 2019. Staying At Stacey’s was shortlisted for the George Devine Award and longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize. Karaoke Play ran at the Bunker in Autumn 2019, receiving a Short Run Commendation Award from the Offies.
The Celebrity In The White Bikini (+ How I Accidentally Looked) was written as part of Theatre503’s 503Five; it also received an MGCFutures bursary. In 2020 Young Vic Taking-Part commissioned Under My Barbie Duvet; originally a full-length play, it was digitally adapted during lockdown. The Delivery Drivers’ Play was part of The Key Worker’s Cycle at the Almeida in 2022 followed by The Measure Of My Dreams in 2023, a ten-month project performed by a community cast of 100.
Other theatre: Tinder471 (Theatre503); Void (VAULT); Sing A Song Of Silence (Arcola Young Company).
Annie’s taken part in the Royal Court and HighTide’s writers’ groups. She’s represented by United.
Asa Haynes – attack of the 50ft black woman
‘I’ve woken up and mountains have formed around me or just grown a bit
rivers carved their way around the sides of my body
Grass sprouted in my pores and the sheep came to graze on it
Is something stopping me from fading
stopping me from just disappearing?’
Asa Haynes is an award-winning Writer from South London. They trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts on the BA Acting course, and since graduating they have been focusing on their writing. He was recently a writer in residence at Theatre 503’s as part of their 503Five writers’ programme. Asa has subsequently been longlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award and Bruntwood Prize in 2025. And in 2023 was shortlisted for the Yale Drama Series their play RACISM: an unfocused theatre essay, of some sort… Asa’s short film …and release has been screened at multiple international film festivals and won the Elena Zastawnik Award for Best Written at the 2026 Film Magnolia Film Festival.
Chloe Yates – Mad Youth Organise
‘Well my psychiatrist did this exercise with me, he gave me a notebook to write down the things that I can control and the things that I can’t control, and there are a lot of things I can’t control, but I can come and glue myself to these doors.’
Chloe is a playwright based in Norwich. Her debut play A Rat, A Rat, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting in 2020. She studied English and Creative Writing at UEA from 2021-2024. Her dissertation play, Sliabh Liag, about the climate impacts and rural geopolitics of the practice of turf cutting in Ireland was the runner up for UEA’s Snoo Wilson Award in 2024. Also in 2024, her short play WE HAVE A BONE TO PICK WITH YOU, won the inaugural Jack Lindsay Award for political playwriting, and was performed on the streets of Norwich. Her one woman show, Spring and Other Things, was produced by the Norwich Arts Centre and transferred to the Old Red Lion in 2024. She was the winner of the Bill Cashmore Award in 2025 for her one act play The Mending Circle, which was produced at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Farah Najib – Night Side
‘Do what the internet says. Cut out gluten, dairy, fat, sugar, alcohol, drugs, sex, fun. Cut out life, cut out any semblance of living. So now you’re ill and you don’t have a single scrap of pleasure to cling on to. All in the vain hope that it might, maybe, possibly, help.’
Farah Najib is an award-winning playwright. Her play Maggots was staged at the Bush Theatre in early 2026 to critical acclaim, with WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton praising her as ‘a writer who can make words dance’. She won Soho Theatre’s 2020 Tony Craze Award for Dirty Dogs, which was also longlisted for the 2022 Bruntwood Prize. An alumna of the Royal Court Writers’ Group and Soho Theatre Writers’ Lab, she trained in Writing for Performance at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama.
Francis Grin – Third Culture Kid
‘We think it’s some kind of honour for them to have us here. It’s not. We’re parasites. Worse. At least with a parasite you can get rid of it.’
Francis is a graduate of the MA Writing for Performance course at Goldsmiths. Her plays frequently examine grief, trauma and connection in a post-digital world. She has been Longlisted for The BBC Writers Room (Drama), The Bruntwood Prize, The Women’s Prize for Playwriting was the joint recipient of the Bold Playwrights Prize in 2023. She also co-founded the theatre company Mrs C’s Collective and worked as the Literary Manager of the Finborough from 2012-2017.
Héctor Manchego – SPUNK
‘Four homosexuals stand in front of an audience.’
Héctor Manchego (he/him) is a Venezuelan-British artist working across theatre, performance, and visual arts. His short play No Tocar was presented at the Royal Court Theatre as part of the No Borders Political Theatre Programme, and he later joined the Royal Court’s SISTER x RC Writers Group. He co-created The Green Room, a performance combining theatre and live music, supported by Soumik Datta Arts and Arts Council England. The show toured the UK in 2023 and 2024. His work has also been presented at Camden People’s Theatre, Streatham Space Project, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Rich Mix, and Migration Matters Festival.
Jacob Hodgkinson – How a Sting Tracks, Post-Show Talk
‘Nobody wants truth anymore. As long as what they hear fits in with how they view the world, allows them to do what they wanna do, stokes up their prejudices and hate, nobody gives a damn about the truth, cos what’s truth when you can have the perfect excuse to be your absolute most base fucking self?!’
Jacob is a graduate of the 2013 Royal Court Young Writers Programme and the 2016/18 New Welsh Playwrights Programmes at the Sherman Theatre. His play Jungle Green was produced at the Sherman Theatre and The Yard Theatre as part of the RWCMD’s NEW:2022 season, while Between Eternity and Time was produced at the RWCMD and the Gate Theatre, London, as part the RWCMD’s NEW:2019 season. Jacob’s short play Roots was commissioned by Pentabus & Paines Plough as part of the COME TO WHERE I AM series, and his play Lung Water is published by Methuen Drama. Jacob’s works have been shortlisted for BBC Writersroom Scriptroom 8 and the 2016 Wales Drama Award, and longlisted for the Theatre503 2023 International Playwriting Award, the 2022 Bruntwood Prize, BBC Script Room Drama 2019, the 2017 Bruntwood Prize, and the 2017 Papatango New Writing Prize.
Joel Samuels – This Play Has Nothing to Do With the 20th Century novel Mephisto, by Klaus Mann (Because That is About Nazis and Therefore Does Not Apply)
‘At the end of the day this is just a confusing mess of ideas and half-thought-through predictions of the end of democracy; honestly I found it hard to read.’
Joel is a writer, actor and theatre-maker from North London. He trained as an actor at LAMDA. Joel is co-Artistic Director of Bet’n Lev Theatre alongside Roann Hassani McCloskey. He also writes musical theatre with composer and lyricist Lilly Pollard.
As a writer his credits include Sugar Coat (with Lilly Pollard, Southwark Playhouse), Remythed (with Roann Hassani McCloskey, Edinburgh Fringe and tour) and the short play A Conversation…I Am Not In (as part of “Cutting the Tightrope: the Divorce of Politics and Art” at the Arcola Theatre and Edinburgh International Festival).
Joel’s writing for theatre has won the International Youth Arts Festival’s Best of the Fest, the Les Enfants Terribles Award, BBC Writersroom Scriptroom 8, Masterclass at the Theatre Royal Haymarket Pitch Your Play Award, a Three Weeks’ Editors Award, an OFFCOMM Award and VAULT Festival Play of the Week.
Jonathan Neil – Misandry
‘Some men are so desperate to leave a mark on the world, they don’t care if the mark is a stain. If it’s a wound, or a fire, or a war.
It is always an instruction not to forget them.
And we don’t.. Do we?’
Jonathan is a writer from Lancashire, currently based in London.
His first play, Twitcher, was longlisted for the Bruntwood prize and shortlisted for the Papatango prize, and his second play Judy, The Righteous was performed as part of the King’s Head Theatre’s Without Decor scheme. He is a graduate of the Royal Court Young Writers Programme and the BBC TV Writers bursary, and his screenwriting has so far earned him the Red Planet Prize for original pilot and, more recently, the Dancing Ledge Writer in Residence Award.
Recurring themes in his work include queerness and family, crises of spiritual faith, and the destructive nature of binary politics.
Liz Bacon – Things That Might Become
‘I am not an absence of what I was before
I am not disappear
I am appear
I appear’
Liz is a writer, director and theatre maker. She works in new writing and devised performance, with a particular emphasis on embodied, ensemble and movement-based processes. She is interested in the intersection of creation with professional and nonprofessional artists.
Previously an Associate Artist for Almeida Projects, CLOD Ensemble, Barbican Creative Learning and Only Connect, she has been commissioned to create work for the BRIT School, Arts Ed and the British Museum, and has directed award-winning work at Edinburgh and VAULT Festivals, Sala Beckett, Theatre503 and New Diorama.
A recipient of Arts Council England’s DYCP grant in 2026 to develop her writing practice, Liz is currently writing a short film, Scooter, a feature film Glass, exploring the fragility and importance of young female friendship and a collection of poems about the early years of motherhood.
Things That Might Become is her first play.
Rebecca Banatvala – Aunties in the USSR
‘My name is Ratti Banatvala. I am here as a member of the Zoroastrian Ladies Committee for Socialist Justice, my husband was a well-reputed employee of the Clerical Workers Union and I thought the Soviet Union would like the chance to recognise his work.’
Rebecca Banatvala is an actor and writer. Her debut full length play A Piece of My Liver exploring grief, and belonging within the Parsi Diaspora was shortlisted for the Tony Craze Award. She was part of the first trans+ onscreen BFI Darkroom cohort (24/25), is an alumni of Soho Theatre’s Writers’ Lab (2022) and was also shortlisted for Nisha Parti’s 2020 Asian Writer’s Award in conjunction with the BBC.
Rhianna Adesuwa Ilube – Forest People
‘And anyway. Damn. I feel like things get weird in that hut.’
Rhianna Adesuwa Ilube is a playwright from London, with an interest in surrealist, participatory, and comedic work. She is a fellow on Juilliard’s playwriting program, and a 2025/26 writer-on-attachment with the Royal Court. Her debut play, Samuel Takes a Break in Male Dungeon No. 5 After a Long but Generally Successful Day of Tours, premiered at The Yard Theatre in 2024. Rhianna’s second show, 1884, an interactive game-theatre show, premiered at Shoreditch Town Hall in 2024 with a sold-out run, before touring the UK. She also wrote 81(Life), the second instalment of the ‘Islington Trilogy’ at the Almeida Theatre, co-created with over 60 non-professional actors. Rhianna was associate director of Coney, an award-winning interactive theater company, and film programmer for BFI Flare and London Film Festival. She was a 2024 MacDowell Fellow, and an alum of BBC’s London Voices, Oxford Playhouse Playmakers, and Royal Court’s Intro to Playwriting.
Sid Sagar – Remember, Remember
‘I’m here in one piece. Which is a miracle when it’s rush hour on the A41. Happy Diwali, darlings.’
Sid is an actor, playwright and screenwriter from a British Indian background. He read History at the University of Bristol and trained as a writer on schemes at Soho Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, Almeida Theatre, The London Library, Channel 4 and Oxbelly. As a playwright, his credits include Gifted and Talented (Stratford East Young Company), Biting Point (Middle Child; published by Faber), Middle Men (BBC Radio 4) and John from Hemel (BBC Radio 4; shortlisted for Best Original Single Drama at BBC Audio Drama Awards 2026). Sid was the 2025 Jerwood Writer-in-Residence at Pentabus and is currently under commission to Pentabus and Hampstead Theatre. As a screenwriter, he’s developed work for BritBox, Sky Studios, Channel 4, Slam Films and Mammoth Screen, been part of writers’ rooms for Netflix and CBeebies, and his short film Baked Beans was produced by BFI NETWORK. He’s based in London.
Suleyman Wellings-Longmore – Black Holes
‘Dear Lord above. Thank you for this food, thank you for this family… and please don’t let these White people trade us to the aliens.’
Suley is a multidisciplinary artist, playwright and lawyer from Harlesden, interrogating systems of control across all practices. In his visual work, Suley blends painting, sculpture and optical illusion to explore themes of permanence, absence and representation. In his playwriting practice, Suley fuses satire, world-building and critical race theory to investigate issues of justice and belonging. Alongside his creative pursuits, Suley balances a career as an art lawyer where he focuses on protecting the rights of emerging artists.
Suley holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, where he studied as a Sir Frank Bowling Scholar, and a Masters from Harvard Law School. He received a scholarship to attend Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and was recently invited on to the Royal Court Theatre’s Writers’ Group. Suley has showcased his playwriting at Shai Space London and The Carter Project Miami.