Nominees for the Ibsen Prize 2026

The national Ibsen Prize is Norway's only playwright's prize, and has been awarded by the municipality of Skien since 1986. The prize goes annually 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 statuette designed by sculptor Nina Sundbye.

The nominees for the Ibsen Prize 2026

Kjersti Haugen is nominated for the first time with Stille inn , which premiered at Teater Innlandet on January 23, 2025.

Tore Vagn Lid is nominated for The Trigger System , which premiered on June 21, 2025 at the Northern Norway Festival. Lid received the National Ibsen Prize in 2017 for Our Honor/Our Power , written together with Cecilie Løveid.

Linda Gathu is nominated for the first time with the play Sugar , which premiered at Det Norske Teatret on June 10, 2025.

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The jury's reasons

Set by Kjersti Haugen

Setting aside puts concrete and simple, but deeply necessary words to what we hate to talk about: death.

Through a heartwarming deep dive into a topic that touches us all – sooner or later, whether we want it or not – Kjersti Haugen draws a painful and precise portrait of a family in their most private moments. Around the terminally ill, the outside world ceases. The rain may pour, trains may stop, society may continue – but inside room 1042, time and place become the main actors. Every breath counts. Every pause takes on significance.

In situations like this, all focus is on the person who is about to die. But in Haugen's finely woven and lucid text, this time is experienced through the eyes of the relative. We stand in the daughter's body – in the love, irritation, humor, guilt and fear. She tries to be strong, wise and present, while at the same time she is afraid of not being good enough. In this way, the play opens up a space we rarely have access to: the unfinished, contradictory and deeply human in saying goodbye.

Tune in is a dramatic work that doesn't shout, but whispers – and that's precisely why it hits so hard. It reminds us that death is not just about leaving life, but about relationships, language, time and love. And about how, in the midst of the inevitable, we try to tune in to each other one last time.

The trigger system by Tore Vagn Lid

The Trigger system dares to think big about the most fundamental thing: man's place in nature - and nature's place in man.

We are invited aboard an ark-like boat, where Captain Noah has collected insects in a vivarium. They talk. They observe us. They ask. In this shifted perspective, Tore Vagn Lid opens up a universe that is sharp, imaginative and disturbingly precise. With references to the Bible, Aesop's fables and philosophy, he creates a textual landscape that is both playful and merciless.

The play dares to be honest in its criticism of man's paradoxical relationship to nature - and to his own nature. It is uncomfortable to be confronted with our own destructive powers. But when it is the brown snail, the stick insect, the wrinkled troll and the scissor animal that speak, a peculiar form of clarity arises. The hierarchy dissolves. Man is placed not at the top, but in the middle.

In this approach lies the strength of the work. It insists that we listen – not only to nature as a resource, but to nature as a co-narrator. The trigger system is both funny and serious, imaginative and philosophical. It opens up space for reflection, without giving easy answers.

It is a brave and necessary work.

Sugar by Linda Gathu

The sins of the colonial era haunt the scenes as a modern art museum attempts to build a more progressive image.

Linda Gathu's Sukker cleverly and humorously shows how self-interest can be camouflaged as morality in a self-righteous zeitgeist. Through solid textual work, written with energy and power, Gathu has created a dense web of different timelines, where an artist is thrown onto a surprising journey in the fight for his artistic integrity. The text is playful, surprising, knowledgeable and funny, while at the same time being grounded in a touching seriousness. Linda Gathu succeeds in treating current social themes such as representation and racism in an undogmatic way and on the text's own, liberating premises.

Sugar is a sharp critique of institutions, while at the same time demonstrating the art and theatre's ability to both make conventions visible and to break out of them. Linda Gathu has written a work that is deeply rooted in our time – and at the same time points further. It is intelligent, fearless and theatrically potent drama.

The jury consists of:

The Norwegian Directors' Association: Simone Thiis (jury chair)

Norwegian Theatre Directors Forum: Hege Aga Edelsteen (Ketil Kolstad)

Norwegian Dramatists: Kristoffer Spender

The Norwegian Playwrights' Association: Kristin Bjørn

Skien Municipality at Theatre Ibsen: Åste Marie Bjerke