About this program
Experience the vibrant storytelling of 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize recipients Roy Williams and Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini through an evening of staged readings. Students from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale present selected scenes from the acclaimed plays of both playwrights. This unique collaboration offers an exciting opportunity to witness powerful new work brought to life by the next generation of theatrical talent.
About Roy Williams
Roy Williams is one of Britain’s most significant and prolific playwrights. Known for his nuanced portrayals of race and class, Williams leverages his powers of observation to reveal how the simmering pressures of contemporary life can explode into hatred. His characters’ conversations have the rhythms of everyday life yet reflect the power of a talent who has been diligently sharpening his ear for dialogue. With his signature style, and across his oeuvre, Williams paints today’s Britain as both uncomfortable and undeniably essential. His many accolades include the Visionary Honours Award (2022), the Writers Guild of Great Britain Award (2011), the Alfred Fagon Award (2010 and 1997), the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright (2001), and a nomination for an Olivier Award (2011). In addition to writing for the stage, Williams also writes for film, television, and radio.
About Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini
One of British theater’s most exciting voices, Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini debuted with Muscovado (2014). Set on a nineteenth-century sugar plantation in Barbados, Ibini’s play is both a haunting portrayal of the brutality of slavery, and a nuanced counternarrative of Black love and friendship amid the violence. A self-described “bionic, queer playwright,” Ibini centers stories from the margins, including from queer and disabled people, and animates them with their signature magical realist splendor. Ibini’s inspiration—everything from their Nigerian heritage to the ’90s anime Sailor Moon—is channeled into a fresh perspective on race and power. Ibini’s plays highlight their incredible range for writing complex, political, and visionary stories. Ibini is the recipient of the Inevitable Foundation x Loreen Arbus Elevate Collective Award (2024), a Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright (2023), and an Alfred Fagon Audience Award (2015), among other honors. They have written across a variety of mediums including children’s books, for the screen, and audio dramas for BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, and Audible. Ibini lives in East London.
About the Windham-Campbell Prizes
Established in 2013 and administered by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, the Windham-Campbell Prize annually recognizes eight English language writers from around the world. The mission of the award is to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns. The categories are fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
The 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize recipients are: in fiction, Sigrid Nunez (United States) and Anne Enright (Ireland); in nonfiction, Patricia J. Williams (United States) and Rana Dasgupta (United Kingdom); in drama, Roy Williams (United Kingdom) and Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini (United Kingdom); and in poetry, Anthony V. Capildeo (Scotland/Trinidad and Tobago) and Tongo Eisen-Martin (United States).
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Roy Williams (left) and Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini (right), photos by Chris Boland
