The Griffin Award continues to go from strength to strength. Our annual playwriting award has continued to connect the playwriting community and broaden its reach following a reimagined ceremony at the National Art School in 2024 and a partnership with the Sydney Writers’ Festival in 2025 (not to mention the adjoining Keynote address).
One of Griffin’s staple creative programs, the 2025 Griffin Award went to Michele Lee for Snappy—selected as one of three finalists from hundreds of entries nationwide.
Thanks to the generosity of the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, the Griffin Award will once again offer a full commission to the winning playwright, along with in-house dramaturgical support. The Award is a cornerstone of the Griffin calendar year, with an enduring history of recognising new talent, elevating new voices and establishing the careers of Australian writers.
Entries for the 2026 Griffin Award open on Tuesday 2 December, following a suite of writing workshops to help get the creative juices flowing.
If you have any questions, please email Griffin’s Literary team at [email protected].
It is with utmost excitement that we announce the three finalists and their plays for the 2025 Griffin Award. Congratulations to these talented creatives—their plays were identified as innovative and exciting examples of new Australian playwriting.
This year’s Griffin Award winner will be announced at a ceremony on Wednesday 21 May.
The Suppostabys by Chenturan Aran
Chenturan Aran is a Melbourne-based playwright, journalist, and screenwriter of Sri Lankan Tamil heritage. His critically acclaimed play Cut Chilli premiered at the Old Fitz in 2024. His sharp, irreverent work sits at the crossroads of diaspora, digital noise and spiritual yearning—mapping the comic and tragic ways we try to remake ourselves.
About The Suppostabys
A disillusioned clone and her original strike a deal to roleplay as mother and daughter, uncovering buried traumas, cultural dislocation, and the fragile nature of forgiveness.
Raven by Van Badham
Van Badham is a writer based in the Central Highlands of Victoria. Her plays include The Bull, the Moon and the Coronet of Stars for Griffin Theatre Company, The Bloody Chamber for Malthouse Theatre, Banging Denmark and A Fool in Love for Sydney Theatre Company, Animal Farm for Black Swan State Theatre Company, Werewolf for Arts Centre Melbourne, and the musical The Questions (with Richard Wise) for State Theatre Company South Australia. She is a columnist for The Guardian and also writes for The New York Times. Originally from Sydney, she attended Port Hacking High School, Miranda, and holds a BA/BCA from the University of Wollongong and an MA from the Victorian College of the Arts.
About Raven
Raven is a horror play. It mashes ghost stories into a domestic thriller to explore dark and volatile dysfunction in an “aspirational” suburban nuclear family in Sydney.
WINNER — Snappy by Michele Lee
Michele Lee is a multiple award-winning Hmong-Australian writer for stage, screen, audio and live art. Across her work, she aims to centre the stories of those historically on the margins—women, people of colour, poor people and working-class people, and people from my community, the Hmong. Selected theatre credits include Security (Darebin Speakeasy, 2022); Rice (East West Theatre, Greece, 2025; Actors’ Touring Company, UK, 2022, 2021; Queensland Theatre, Griffin Theatre Company and HotHouse Theatre, 2017) and Going Down (Sydney Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre, 2018). Michele is under commission from Melbourne Theatre Company and her latest work, These Other Things, premieres in May 2025, commissioned and presented by RMIT Culture. She was a 2022-2023 Sidney Myer Creative Fellow.
About Snappy
Bea’s in Melbourne. In a bar. There’s a stranger. Hot stranger. Younger than her. Bea gulps, f*ck it, approaches. Buy. Me. A. Drink. And he does. Snappy is a play about desire and big mistakes.
