UK-based playwright Waleed Akhtar has won the 2026 Hermitage Major Theater Award, one of the largest non-profit theatre commissions in the United States and the United Kingdom. The Waleed Akhtar Hermitage Award announcement came on 5 November 2026, when the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Florida named him the seventh recipient of the prize. Along with the honour comes a cash commission of $35,000, a residency at the Hermitage on Manasota Key in Florida, and a developmental workshop of his new play in London in late 2028.
It is a remarkable rise for a writer whose best-known play, The P Word, put the lives of two gay Pakistani men on a London stage — and won him an Olivier Award in the process. Yet the most memorable part of this week’s announcement may be Akhtar’s own reaction: when the first email arrived telling him he had made the finalists’ list, he was convinced it was a con.
I Thought It Was a Phishing Scam
“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,” Akhtar said in a statement released by the Hermitage. “And here I am overwhelmed and so grateful at receiving the Hermitage Major Theater Award. I am beyond excited to have been chosen by such an amazing panel to create a whole new piece of work. And also now kind of wishing I’d responded to the email from that Nigerian Prince, too!”
The joke landed because the award really does work that way. Winners and finalists of the Hermitage Major Theater Award are nominated and chosen by a committee of artistic leaders, and the panel behind this year’s decision was kept secret until the announcement. The 2026 committee included Dominic Cooke, artistic director of the Almeida Theatre; Lynette Linton, the former artistic director of the Bush Theatre and a BAFTA-nominated director; and Tim Sheader, artistic director and joint chief executive of the Donmar Warehouse.
The announcement was made by Andy Sandberg, artistic director and chief executive of the Hermitage Artist Retreat, who confirmed that Akhtar will receive the $35,000 prize as well as the Florida residency and the London workshop.
What the $35,000 Award Actually Pays For
The Hermitage Major Theater Award is unusual in what it pays for. It is not a prize for a play that already exists. It is a commission for a play that does not yet exist: the winner is paid to write something new, original and impactful, and is then given the time and space to develop it.
The award was established in 2021 with support from Flora Major and the Kutya Major Foundation, and it offers one of the largest non-profit theatre commissions in the United States and the United Kingdom. Akhtar is only the second artist based in the United Kingdom to receive it since the award began.
The $35,000 is the headline figure, but the rest of the package matters just as much to a working playwright. The residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Manasota Key, Florida, gives the winner uninterrupted writing time in a dedicated artists’ community. The developmental workshop, which for this commission will be held in London in late 2028, will then put the finished script in front of actors and directors for the first time.
The New Play: A Dark Comedy About Rehan Malik
Akhtar has already sketched out the play the commission will produce. It is a dark comedy about Rehan Malik, an artist who has finally been given a retrospective exhibition in a London gallery, only for a meeting with a younger, rougher artist to make him question everything he has made.
The premise fits the territory Akhtar has made his own: confident, successful men whose polished public lives hide deep uncertainty, and the collisions that happen when two very different worlds meet. It also continues his habit of writing about artists and identity, subjects he explored in The P Word and in his earlier work for stage and screen.
No production date has been announced beyond the London workshop in late 2028, and the Hermitage has not said when the finished play might reach a full staging. For now, the commission itself is the news — and the two years of writing time it buys.
From The P Word to the Olivier
Akhtar’s breakthrough came with The P Word, which premiered at the Bush Theatre in London in 2022 and was revived there in 2026. The play follows the parallel lives of two gay Pakistani men: Bilal, a confident second-generation British Pakistani Londoner who prefers to be called Billy, and Zafar, an asylum seeker from Lahore who fled Pakistan after his family ordered the murder of his boyfriend. The production won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, and Akhtar was named Most Promising Playwright at the Off West End Awards for The P Word and for Kabul Goes Pop: Music Television Afghanistan.
Kabul Goes Pop, his debut play, was inspired by the true story of Afghanistan’s first youth music television programme and was staged at Brixton House in London in 2022. His other work includes The Real Ones at the Bush Theatre in 2024, the audio drama Mrs. Bibi, which was nominated for Best Play at the Tinniswood Awards, and writing for The Road Trip on Paramount+. His short film Lost Paradise was produced by the UK Film Council and played at festivals across Europe.
He has also received an MGC Futures bursary, a place on the Peggy Ramsey Foundation and Film 4 Playwrights’ Scheme, and a spot on the BBC Spotlight initiative for emerging writers.
Who Else Was in the Running
Three finalists were named alongside Akhtar: Olivier nominee Mohamed-Zain Dada, Azuka Oforka and Sarah Power. Each finalist receives a Hermitage residency and fellowship, along with a cash prize of $1,500.
Akhtar follows New York-based playwright Anne Washburn, who was named the sixth recipient of the award in February 2026 and will have her workshop in New York in late 2027.
For Pakistani audiences, the win is a reminder of how far Pakistani stories have travelled on the world stage. A play about two gay Pakistani men, one of them an asylum seeker from Lahore, has now led its writer to one of the biggest theatre commissions available — and to a new play that will be workshopped in London in 2028. The email Akhtar once feared was a scam turned out to be the real thing, and worth $35,000.
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