NEW SCHOLARS ESSAY PRIZE COMPETITION 2020

The Society for Theatre Research invites entries for this year’s Essay competition.

The competition is open to postgraduate students, academics with an institutional affiliation, and independent scholars, but not undergraduates. Entrance is restricted to scholars who have had no more than one article previously published in a refereed journal. Entrants do not need to be members of the STR or to reside in the UK.

For an essay to be eligible for the competition, it must be aligned with the Aims of the Society for Theatre Research and be concerned with the history and techniques of the British theatre. The word “theatre” may be interpreted widely to cover, for example, activities that go on in theatre buildings, theatrical activities outside theatres, professional and amateur theatre, the business of theatre, stage design, the history of theatre buildings, acting techniques and theatre outside the British Isles that relates directly to the history and techniques of the British theatre. Essays should not be concerned mainly with the interpretation of dramatic texts.

The essays will be judged double blind by a panel of distinguished judges chaired by Professor Trevor R Griffiths. The prizes include a cash element, a one-year subscription to the STR, a selection of STR books and the guarantee that the essay will be considered for inclusion by Theatre Notebook under its normal guidelines.

The closing date for the submission of entries is 13 April 2020. Essays must not exceed 4000 words and must use the current version of the MLA guidelines on scholarly presentation. Entrants must take great care to ensure that their essay does not allow them to be identified by their readers.

 

Essays should be sent as an attachment to newscholarsprize@str.org.uk. In their covering email entrants should include a brief biography and a confirmation that they are eligible to submit an entry for the prize. Essays should not be offered to journals while they are under consideration for the prize.

Past Winners of the New Scholars Prize

  1. 2018

    The 2018 New Scholars Essay competition celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Society’s foundation.

    Joint First Prizes were awarded to
    “Lady Randolph Churchill’s ‘Tremendous, Ridiculous, Costly Hats’: A Material Culture Approach to His Borrowed Plumes” by Holly Dayton.
    and
    “Studying the Composition of Theatre Audiences: An Examination of Fatality Records following the Fire at the Theatre Royal, Exeter in 1887” by Tomochika Sato.

    Holly Dayton is currently a PhD candidate in History at Northwestern University, USA.
    Tomochika Sato is a part-time lecturer at Kyoritsu Women’s University and Hosei University, Japan.

    The competition was open to postgraduate students, academics with an institutional affiliation, and independent scholars, but not undergraduates. Entrance was restricted to scholars who have had no more than one article previously published in a refereed journal. Entrants did not need to be members of the STR or to reside in the UK

    The essays were judged double-blind by a panel of distinguished judges chaired by Professor Trevor R Griffiths. The prizes include a cash element, a one-year subscription to the STR, a selection of STR books and the guarantee that the essay will be considered for inclusion by Theatre Notebook under its normal guidelines.

  2. 2016

    Tanya Dean: ‘“Experience the Best of British Theatre”; NT Live Broadcasts as Performances of Archival Process’.

    Tanya Dean is a Lecturer in Drama in the School of Creative Arts and Technologies in Ulster University

  3. 2014

    Joanna Duncan: ‘Benson’s Dream: Touring a “Grand Production to the Provinces”’.
    Joanna Duncan studied English and Drama at the University of Hull, graduating in 1990 and then became a secondary school teacher of both subjects. She recently completed three years of part-time study as a distance learner at the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute, gaining an MA in Shakespeare and Performance with distinction.

  4. 2012

    Jonathan Rhodes Lee: ‘“Woman! Thy Sins Be Forgiven Thee”: Susanna Cibber, Handel’s Oratorios, and the Sentimental’.

    Jonathan Rhodes Lee is a PhD candidate at Berkeley.