Who will win the Ibsen Prize 2026?

Time and place : Friday 20 March at 19.00 in Ibsenhuset , Skien

In Henrik Ibsen's birthplace, the audience will meet the nominated playwrights and experience excerpts from the nominated works before this year's winner of the country's only playwright's award is announced.

The Ibsen Prize is awarded by the municipality of Skien and goes to a dramatic text that has had its world premiere or Norwegian premiere at a professional Norwegian theater – or in another professional and artistic context – during the previous calendar year. The prize consists of 150,000 kroner and a bronze statuette made by the artist Nina Sundbye.

– For 30 years, the Ibsen Prize has helped to highlight new voices in Norwegian drama. The prize serves as a door-opener for playwrights, both nationally and internationally. It has strengthened the professional community and contributed to pride and interest in the most important profession in the theatre: the author of the text – the playwright, says theatre director Line Rossvoll at Teater Ibsen.

The evening will be hosted by Charlotte Frogner and Dennis Storhøi. The audience will meet the nominated playwrights in conversation with Masoud Ghadimfallah, and experience staged excerpts from the nominated texts.
The excerpts are performed by actors Geddy Aniksdal, Hadle Reisæter, Anne Guri Tvedt, Asta Busingye Lydersen, Maria Agwumaro, Ameli Isungset Agbota and Khalid Mahamoud.
The evening also offers musical performances by Hardanger fiddle player Alexander Aga Røynstrand and Symre with band, who perform songs from their latest album.

The nominees for the Ibsen Prize 2026

Kjersti Haugen is nominated for Stille inn , a painful and precise portrait of a family in the face of death, seen through the eyes of a daughter who tries to be present in the inevitable.

Linda Gathu is nominated for Sugar , a sharp and humorous piece about art, representation and the reverberations of colonial history in our own time.

Tore Vagn Lid is nominated for The Trigger System , an imaginative and philosophical drama in which insects observe humans and question our place in nature.