UK playwright Waleed Akhtar wins 2026 Hermitage Major Theater Award
UK playwright Waleed Akhtar has been named the seventh winner of the Hermitage Major Theater Award, a US prize for writers working in theatre. The Hermitage Artist Retreat announced the result on 5 November 2026, and WhatsOnStage reported it the following day.
The award includes a $35,000 commission, paid in US dollars, to write a new play. Akhtar will also spend time at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Manasota Key, Florida. A developmental workshop of the new work is planned for London in autumn 2028, which is when a first version of the play is expected to be tested in front of a room of people.
His proposed play is a dark comedy. It centres on Rehan Malik, an artist whose work is being celebrated in a London gallery retrospective, a show that looks back over a career.
The judging committee was Dominic Cooke, Lynette Linton and Tim Sheader. The other three finalists were Mohamed-Zain Dada, Azuka Oforka and Sarah Power. Each of them receives a Hermitage residency and Fellowship, along with a $1,500 cash prize.
Akhtar is both a playwright and an actor. He won an Olivier Award, Britain's main theatre prizes run by the Society of London Theatre, for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre for The P Word. He also took the Most Promising Playwright prize at the Off-West End Awards for Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan.
The Hermitage Major Theater Award was set up in 2021 and is supported by Flora Major and the Kutya Major Foundation. Earlier winners include Madeleine George, Shariffa Ali, Imani Uzuri, Chris Bush, Naomi Iizuka and Anne Washburn. Bush's commissioned play Orlando (FL) was presented at the National Theatre in autumn 2025. The Hermitage will present a workshop reading of Washburn's commission in New York in autumn 2027.
For UK audiences, the link to London is the part to watch. The award's route runs from a Florida retreat to a London workshop, and the London stage is where the play is expected to be tested first. No public opening date has been set for the finished work.
