The Open Call for the 6th Edition of the New Dramaturgy Award for Female Authors is now open.

We are very pleased to announce the opening of the Open Call on January 1st for the 6th edition of the New Dramaturgy Award for Female Authors, an initiative that affirms and promotes new voices in theatrical writing in the Portuguese language.

Between January 1st and March 31st, 2026 , applications will be open to adults who identify as female, cisgender, or transgender and who submit original theatrical texts written in Portuguese. The complete regulations can be found here .

Created with the aim of promoting, recognizing and disseminating plays written by women, the Prize has established itself as a benchmark in the contemporary theatrical landscape, gathering, throughout its five previous editions, around 560 applications from various Portuguese-speaking countries.

The submitted works will be evaluated by a jury composed of three personalities with recognized experience in the field of theatre and dramaturgy, whose names will be announced in January 2026. In June, the three finalist texts will be revealed, and they will have access to an optional period of mentoring and improvement, in dialogue with the jury members. After this phase, the winning work will be selected.

The winning text will be awarded a monetary prize of €1,000 , will be published as a book , and will be included in the program of the Festival of Readings of Theatre Texts – Tonight We Shout, in 2026, in a public reading that will also mark the launch of the book.

The previous edition was marked by the awarding of the Prize to Sabrina Marthendal for her work Pedral , with the award ceremony, book launch, and public reading held at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in December 2025. Over the past few years, the Prize has also distinguished authors such as Luz Ribeiro ( Lacuna , 2024), Sofia Perpétua ( Tanque , 2023), Maria Giulia Pinheiro ( Isso não é positivo , 2022), and Lara Mesquita ( Sempre que acordo , 2021).