Tara Theatre are pleased to announce our shortlist for NOVA. We received an overwhelming number of remarkable submissions and we want to thank every single playwright who took to time to submit their work to our team to read.

The quality was astonishingly high this year and we’re overjoyed to see so many phenomenal playwrights sharing their work with us. Every writer should be immensely proud of their work.

As our flagship new writing programme, NOVA is an open call to uncover fresh South Asian writing talent.

Our Associate Director Gavin Joseph comments “A huge dose of gratitude and thanks to everyone who took the time and effort to apply for NOVA this year. We were super impressed by the number of incredible ideas and pitches that were presented and absolutely loved reading them all! NOVA is all about expanding the canon of South Asian work by discovering and empowering writers of South Asian heritage to share the stories that they want to tell. It’s nourishing to know that there is such a wealth of talent within the British South Asian community and that our voice within theatre is strong and very much alive.”

The next step is the selection of the NOVA playwrights. Those selected will receive a commission worth £1,500 as well as mentoring and dramaturgical support, resulting in a public performance of their work produced by a professional team in May 2026.

The full shortlist of playwrights for NOVA 2026 can be found below.

NOVA 2026 Shortlist

Bedi

afshan d’souza-lodhi

Gurjot Dhaliwal

Abir Mohammed

Dilan Tulsiani

Ragevan Vasan

Adil Akram

Mohammed Barber