Victorian Premier's Prize for Drama

The Victorian Premier's Prize for Drama is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. The winner of this category prize vies with four other category winners (fiction; non-fiction; poetry; young adult literature) for overall Victorian Prize for Literature.

Until 2012, the award was called the Louis Esson Prize for Drama.

Victorian Premier's Prize for Drama

Winners of the Overall Victorian Prize for Literature have a blue ribbon ().

Victorian Premier's Prize for Drama winners and finalists

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2012	Lally Katz	A Golem Story	Winner	[1][2]
	Aidan Fennessy	National	Finalist	[1][3]
	Daniel Keene	Boxman	Finalist	[1][3]
2014[a]	Patricia Cornelius	Savages	Winner	[4]
	Kate Grenville	The Secret River	Finalist	[5][6]
	Anne-Louise Sarks and Kate Mulvany	Medea	Finalist	[5][6]
2015	Angus Cerini	Resplendence	Winner	[7][8]
	Alison Croggon	Mayakovsky	Finalist	[7][9][10]
	Daniel Keene	The Long Way Home	Finalist	[7][9][10]
2016	Mary Anne Butler	Broken	Winner	[11][12]
	Angela Betzien	Mortido	Finalist	[13]
	Patricia Cornelius	SHIT	Finalist	[13]
	Declan Greene	I am a Miracle	Highly commended	[13]
2017	Leah Purcell	The Drover's Wife	Winner	[14]
	Gita Bezard	Girl Shut Your Mouth	Finalist	[15]
	Zoë Coombs Marr	Trigger Warning	Finalist	[15]
2018	Michele Lee	Rice	Winner	[16][17]
	Nakkiah Lui	Black is the New White	Finalist	[18][19]
	Kate Mulvany	The Rasputin Affair	Finalist	[18][19]
2019	Kendall Feaver	The Almighty Sometimes	Winner	[20][21]
	Michele Lee	Going Down	Finalist	[22]
	Ursula Yovich and Alana Valentine	Barbara and the Camp Dogs	Finalist	[22]
2020	S. Shakthidharan (and associated writer Eamon Flack)	Counting and Cracking	Winner	[23][24][25]
	Samah Sabawi	Them	Finalist	[26]
	Meyne Wyatt	City of Gold	Finalist	[26]
2021	Angus Cerini	Wonnangatta	Winner	[27]
	Dan Giovannoni	SLAP. BANG. KISS.	Finalist	[28][29]
	Andrea James	Sunshine Super Girl: The Evonne Goolagong Story	Finalist	[28][29]
	Kendall Feaver	Wherever She Wanders	Highly Commend	[28][29]
	Benjamin Law	Torch the Place	Highly Commend	[28][29]
2022	Dylan Van Den Berg	Milk	Winner	[30][31]
	Steve Perie	Return to the Dirt	Finalist	[32]
	Melissa Reeves	Archimedes War	Finalist	[33]
	Andrea James & Catherine Ryan	Dogged	Highly commend	[34]
2023	John Harvey	The Return	Winner	[35][36][37]
	Merlynn Tong	Golden Blood	Finalist	[38][39]
	Dylan Van Den Berg	Whitefella Yella Tree	Finalist	[38][39]
2024	Declan Furber Gillick	Jacky	Finalist	[40]
	S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack	The Jungle and the Sea	Finalist	[40]
	Christos Tsiolkas and Dan Giovannoni	Loaded	Finalist	[40]
2025	Nathan Maynard	37	Winner	[41]
	Emily Sheehan	Frame Narrative	Finalist	[42]
	Angus Cerini	Into the Shimmering World	Finalist	[42]

Louis Esson Prize for Drama

Louis Esson Prize for Drama winners and finalists

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
1985	David Allen	Cheapside	Winner	[43]
1986	Janis Balodis	Too Young for Ghosts	Winner	[44]
1987	Ben Lewin	A Matter of Convenience	Winner	[45]
1988	Alma De Groen	The Rivers of China	Winner	[46]
1989	Daniel Keene	Silent Partner	Winner	[47]
1990	Sam Sejavka	The Hive	Winner	[48]
1991	Katherine Thomson	Diving for Pearls	Winner
1992	Jocelyn Moorhouse	Proof	Winner
1993	Michael Gurr	Sex Diary of an Infidel	Winner
1994	Louis Nowra	The Temple	Winner	[49]
1995	Barry Dickins	Remembering Ronald Ryan	Winner	[50]
1996	Joanna Murray-Smith	Honour	Winner
1997	Michael Gurr	Jerusalem	Winner
1998	Daniel Keene	Every Minute, Every Hour, Every Day	Winner	[51]
1999	Catherine Zimdahl	Clark in Sarajevo	Winner	[52]
2000	Hannie Rayson	Life After George	Winner
2001	Peta Murray	Salt	Winner
2002	Andrew Bovell	Holy Day	Winner
2003	Joanna Murray-Smith	Rapture	Winner
2004	Stephen Sewell	Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America	Winner
2005	Melissa Reeves	The Spook	Winner
2006	Stephen Sewell	Three Furies: Scenes from the Life of Francis Bacon	Winner
2007	Jane Bodie	A Single Act	Winner
	Kit Lazaroo	Asylum	Finalist	[53]
	Stephen Sewell	It Just Stopped	Finalist	[53]
2008	Andrew Bovell	When the Rain Stops Falling	Winner	[54][55]
	Wesley Enoch	The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table	Finalist	[55]
	Michael Gow	Toy Symphony	Finalist	[55]
2009	Lally Katz	Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd	Winner
	Paul Galloway	Realism	Finalist	[56]
	Damien Millar	The Modern International Dead	Finalist	[56]
2010	Tom Holloway	And No More Shall We Part	Winner	[57]
	Declan Greene	Moth	Finalist	[58]
	Melissa Reeves	Furious Mattress	Finalist	[58]
2011	Patricia Cornelius	Do not go gentle…	Winner	[59]
	Jane Montgomery Griffiths	Sappho…in 9 fragments	Finalist	[59]
	Raimondo Cortese	Intimacy	Finalist	[59]

Notes

1. Prior to 2014, the award year was directly related to the year of publication. In 2014, the award year referred to books published in the previous year. That is, in 2012, the award went to books published in 2012. In 2014, the award went to books published in 2013.