Waleed Akhtar, the Olivier Award-winning writer of The P Word, has been named the seventh recipient of the Hermitage Major Theater Award, a $35,000 commission for a new play that is due to be workshopped in London in late 2028.
The award is unusual in what it pays for. It is not a prize for a play already on the stage but a commission for one that does not yet exist: alongside the $35,000, the winner receives a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Florida's Manasota Key and a developmental workshop of the finished script, which this time will be held in London in late 2028. Akhtar is only the second artist based in the UK to receive it since the Hermitage set it up in 2021.
This year the choice rested with a British committee: Dominic Cooke, artistic director of the Almeida Theatre; Lynette Linton, who ran the Bush Theatre from 2019 to 2025; and Tim Sheader, artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse. They settled on Akhtar from a final four. The other three finalists, Mohamed-Zain Dada, Azuka Oforka and Sarah Power, each take away a Hermitage residency and fellowship and $1,500.
Akhtar works as both writer and actor. The P Word won him the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, and Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan earned him Most Promising Playwright at the Off West End Awards. His audio drama Mrs. Bibi was nominated for Best Play at the Tinniswood Award, he holds commissions with the Unicorn and the Almeida, and he has just completed an attachment at the Royal Court.
The new piece, as he outlines it, is a dark comedy about Rehan Malik, an artist who has at last been given a retrospective in a London gallery, only for a meeting with a younger, rougher artist to make him question everything he has made and, in Akhtar's words, "the compromises and concessions it's taken for a brown man to get there."
"I definitely thought it was a phishing scam when I received an email saying I'd made the list of finalists for a major award with a secret panel," said Akhtar. "And here I am overwhelmed and so grateful at receiving the Hermitage Major Theater Award."
Cooke was no less warm. "Waleed dazzled us with a thrilling proposal that combines a culturally specific experience with universal scope," he said. "Having long admired his previous work for its courage, honesty, and humour, I am excited to see how he will use the generous support of the Hermitage."
The precedent for a British winner is encouraging. Chris Bush, the fourth recipient, saw her commission, Orlando (FL), presented at the National Theatre in autumn 2025, directed by the Hermitage's artistic director and chief executive, Andy Sandberg.
For more information, visit the Hermitage Artist Retreat.
