The Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award 2026

The Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award, instituted by the Late Dr. Rodney Seaborn in 1995, is offered annually for the development of a play or other approved performing arts project emphasizing positive values.

The Award is intended for a playwright needing financial support for the development of a play or performance project, rather than as a prize for a finished, previously performed work. Development may include for example, workshops, dramaturgy, re-writing and costs leading to production.

A recipient may be working alone or jointly with others and might include writers, composers, designers, directors, producers, formally constituted performing arts organisations or ad hoc groups of performing arts professionals. Only applications from individual playwrights will be considered by the Fund, not performing arts companies.

The Award is advertised nationally.

Applicants for the Award should note the following guidelines and conditions.

1. Preference for the Award will be given to persons who have resided in Australia for a period or periods totaling one year or more.
2. The Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Trust will appoint a panel of judges for the Award, whose decisions will be final.
3. The judges may determine that the Award be shared by the initiators of more than one play or project, and, if a script or project is the work of two or more, the judges may apportion the Award money between them as see fit.
4. The winning script or project treatment will be promoted and commended to professional performing arts organisations with a view to production and performance.
5. Any material in the play subject to copyright would need to be identified.
6. Winners of the Award and organisations promoting or producing their work will be expected to give suitable acknowledgment in advertising, media releases, programmes and other written material of the support provided by the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Trust and to use the logo of the Seaborn, Broughton and Walford Foundation.
7. If, in the opinion of the judges, the work submitted in any year does not reach a sufficiently high standard, no award for that year will be made.
8. The $20,000 Playwrights Award will be made in two stages : $15,000 in the first instance and the remaining $5000 upon receipt of satisfactory progress reports.
9. Applications for the 2026 Award should be made on the appropriate entry form available on the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation website and submitted by Wednesday 19th August, 2026.
10. The first payment of the 2026 award money will be paid by 31 December 2026 by the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Trust, or its successors, from funds made available by the Trustees of the Estate of Rodney Seaborn.
11. Unfortunately, we are not able to discuss the selection process or offer individual feedback to unsuccessful applicants.

The Members of the RSPA Trustees Panel are:

• Diana Simmonds – Chair of the Trustees Panel
• Ken Healey AM
• Lee Lewis OAM
• Suzanne Millar
• Terence Clarke AM
• Camilla Rountree
• Deborah Jones
• Noel Hodda

Enquiries: Carol Martin

• Phone 0434 433 225
• Email office@sbwfoundation.com

2025 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award Winner:

Elaine Acworth awarded for her play Rowan’s Story.

The 2025 winner: award-winning Brisbane playwright, researcher, theatre producer, teacher and mentor Elaine Acworth for her new play Rowan’s Story. Elaine has taught in both specialist workshops and class environments, mentored emerging playwrights and adjudicated eisteddfods. In accepting the award, she explained that the ecology of theatre practice means we support everyone, at every level, who wants to create work. Dedicated to pursuing her commitment to the next generation of practitioners and to the changing nature of her craft, she displayed emotion as she assured the audience of her confidence in the younger generation with whom she had conducted workshops during the evolution of her play, exploring themes of partner violence and gender equity.

2024 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award Winners:

Alex Broun & Ian Roberts awarded for their play Into the Light.

Olivia Satchell awarded for her play Ball Kids.

The joint winners for 2024 were Ballkids by Melbourne playwright Olivia Satchell and Into The Light by Ian Roberts and Alex Broun.

Chair of Trustees, theatre critic and commentator Diana Simmonds: Every year we’re thrilled at the variety and standard of submissions, and past winners prove the talent we’ve discovered and supported. This year we had a situation that’s happened only once before – two plays just couldn’t be separated. So I’m happy to say we’ve been able to make equal awards – $20,000 to each.

Trustees who judged this year’s Award were: Diana Simmonds (Chair), NIDA Artistic Director in Residence David Berthold, dramaturg and theatre legend Terry Clark AM, leading theatre director Lee Lewis OAM, Co-Artistic Director of bAKEHOUSE Theatre and Creative Director at KXT on Broadway Suzanne Millar, and theatre director Darren Yap.

Lee Lewis said of Ballkids:
‘Ballkids’ is a play that signals Olivia Satchell as a significant voice in the future of Australian theatre. Sophisticated, nuanced, accessible and optimistic Ballkids is a joyous portrait of friendship that reveals Satchell’s gift for understanding humans and transporting them into theatrical shape. This award recognises the achievement hived in ‘Ballkids’ but also revels in the anticipation of all her plays to come.

Terry Clarke:
‘Into The Light’ is based on the true story of the (platonic) relationship between Ian Roberts, the renowned rugby league forward and NIDA graduate, and Arron, a youth he had compassionately befriended. Arron was murdered the day before he was to be Crown witness against a paedophile ring. The presentation is semi-documentary, so avoiding the temptation to sensationalise. While understandably presenting things from Roberts’ point of view, it does not whitewash him; on the contrary: the play, born of righteous anger, is both authentic and scarifyingly honest. The story itself is both horrible and moving, even heartwarming; the telling of it is well crafted, both dramatic and cleverly theatrical.

The Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award, worth $20,000 to the winner, has been an annual award since 2000. Past winners include Alana Valentine, Katherine Thomson, Dylan Van Den Berg, Steve Rodgers, Campion Decent, Reg Cribb, Finegan Kruckemeyer, Mary Rachel Brown, Debra Oswald, Katie Pollock and Maxine Mellor.

Maxine Mellor wins the 2023 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award

Award for her play O’Mighty Make Believe

Dylan Van Den Berg wins the 2022 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award

Award for his play The Chosen Vessel. 

Steve Rodgers wins the 2021 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award

Award for his play The Future is History.

The Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Trust receives funding from the Rodney Seaborn Estate. Although it is closely associated with the S,B&W Foundation, the Trust is a separate legal entity. The Trust welcomes contributions from companies and individual donors. Contributions of $2 and over are tax-deductible.