Irish playwright Carys D. Coburn among finalists for prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced the ten finalists for its 2025 edition, and Irish playwright Carys D. Coburn is among them. Their play, BÁN, was commissioned and nominated for the prize by the Abbey Theatre. The winner will be announced in New York City on Monday, March 10.

BÁN transposes Federico García Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba to ‘80s Cork. Lorca’s play follows the yearn for freedom of five sisters who are forced to abide by the strict rules for mourning of their steely, unyielding mother in the aftermath of their father's death. Coburn’s play explores themes of domestic violence, sisterhood, and generational trauma in its radical transposition of one rural setting into another.

“It's an honour and a pleasure to be a finalist, and particularly with this project,” Coburn has said in response to the news. “BÁN's title is not the only forbiddingly Irish thing about it – it's all about the long shadow of our 20th century, how we're still living with the effects of oralism and Catholicism, forced sterilisations and adoptions, no free healthcare for mothers or children for fear they'll get contraception,” they added.

Coburn’s writing is renowned for its unique combination of playfulness, anger, poetry, and politics. They have received numerous accolades, like the 2019 Verity Bargate Award for Citysong, directed by Caitríona McLaughlin, Co-Director and Artistic Director at the Abbey Theatre. In the genre-blending play, a chorus of voices depict three generations of a Dublin family, and their common past, in the course of one day.

Coburn also won the Best Production category at the Fringe Awards 2022 for their play Absent the Wrong, which was partially conceived as a response to the Mother and Baby Homes Report. The play delves into Irish collective memory and the search for answers of adoptees from these institutions.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize was established in 1978. It currently awards $70,000 annually to 10 playwrights: $25,000 to the winner, and $5,000 to other finalists. The last Irish nominee to win the prize was Dublin-born Stella Feehily, with her play O Go My Man, as well as Northern Irish authors Lucy Caldwell and Abbie Spallen, with plays Leaves and Pumpgirl, respectively. They were all co-winners in the 2007 edition for different plays, alongside American playwright Sheila Callaghan for her play Dead City.

The 2025 edition prize winner will be announced on Monday, March 10. For more information, you can click here here.