Drama about Flint water crisis takes major theatre award

US activist and dramatist Erika Dickerson-Despenza wins Susan Smith Blackburn prize with the play cullud wattah

A bold and urgent" play about the Flint water crisis, seen through the eyes of an all-female Michigan family, has won this year's Susan Smith Blackburn prize for female, transgender and non-binary playwrights. The award went to Erika Dickerson-Despenza for cullud wattah, part of a tetralogy about water which the playwright hopes will raise consciousness and radicalise" audiences.

I'm a black woman who has grown up in a family of primarily black women," said Dickerson-Despenza. I wanted to write about women living under siege - environmental racism, classism and gender dynamics, and what this does to women and girls in the black midwest. Because I'm a grassroots organiser and activist, I think of all my work as a vehicle. My goal is to radicalise people ... I will explore an issue in a creative way to raise collective consciousness."