With great pleasure the Society announces that the Research Awards process for 2020 has been completed.

This year’s recipients come from a wide range of backgrounds, including independent researchers and practitioners, PhD students and a professor emeritus, and their projects cover a wide range of subjects, such as mime and physical theatre, a website database of opera houses in the last 150 years, and popular entertainments in Brixton and Weston-super-Mare.

Fifteen awards in total have been distributed as follows:

The Anthony Denning Award has been given to
Siobhan Keenan (De Montfort University), for research that will result in a new book on Richard Burbage: A Theatrical Life. [travel]

The Kathleen Barker Award has been given to
Nick Havergal (PhD student, Bristol), for research into outdoor popular entertainments in Aberystwyth and Weston-Super-Mare. [travel and permissions]

The Stephen Joseph Award has been given to
Henry Bell (Sheffield Hallam University) for research and interviews for a new book on Theatre in the Round  [travel]

Other awards were given to:

Soudabeh Ananisarab (Birmingham University) for research into Shaw and the Manchester Gaiety Theatre  [travel]

Christine Beddoe with Tracey Gregory (independent researchers) for a wide-ranging project on Brixton in the good old days – That was the entertainment it was. [travel]

Mark Evans (Coventry) and Simon Murray (Glasgow)  for their project on the History of UK Mime and Physical Theatre: Interviews with leading practitioners and archival research. [travel]

Laura Higgins (Oxford Brookes University) for research towards an article on Shakespeare’s ghosts, ‘Perturbed Spirits’ [travel London/Oxford/Stratford]

Sharon Muiruri Coyne (theatre practitioner) for work on the Penwithen Boys Documentary: the long-term effect of an applied theatre project: [film editing costs]

Nicci Obholzer (Collections assistant, National Trust) to fund an investigation into the Network of Ellen Terry’s Memorial Barn Theatre Chairs at Smallhythe Place, Kent. [travel]

Michael Pinchbeck (Manchester Metropolitan University) for his work on exploring past and potential adaptations of Berger and Mohr’s work for theatre [travel London and Geneva]

Charlotte Purkis (Winchester University) for her research into understanding the role of theatre director Norman Marshall (1901-1980) [travel]

Mark Scott (PhD student Warwick University) for the creation of a website database of opera houses, architecture, performances and personalities, from the mid-19th century up [travel]

Alison Shell (University College of London) for her research into the drama of the British Counter-Reformation [travel to Boston]

Simon Shepherd (emeritus professor, Royal Central) for his new book Granville Barker: The Unknown Texts. [copyright clearances / image licensing]

Hannah Unwin (PhD Newcastle, resident Abu Dhabi) for her work on Johnston Forbes-Robertson and the Functions of Theatrical Celebrity, 1880-1920 [travel]

All award winners receive a year’s free membership to the Society as part of their award. In addition, we were deeply impressed by all those who submitted applications – who had built in allowances for all eventualities, and who were able to adjust as the circumstances changed in the extraordinary difficulties posed by the current crisis. We therefore have decided to give to everyone who submitted an application a copy of this year’s Annual Publication, Steve Nicholson’s four-volume The Censorship of British Drama 1900-1968, an important and warmly reviewed four-part analysis of British theatre censorship.

Sadly we cannot celebrate all this publicly at our AGM as in normal times, but our admiration is none the less for being restricted to online outlets, and we wish everyone the very best for their further research in these difficult times. We hope that our support will enable them to seize the first opportunities that arise as soon as the lockdown starts to relax.

For past recipients of the STR’s Research Awards, please see the section on the Awards page here.