A Piece of Work by Simon Russell Beale (Abacus)
STR THEATRE BOOK PRIZE
Established to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Society for Theatre Research in 1998, the aim of the Book Prize is to encourage the writing and publication of books on British-related theatre history and practice, both those which present the theatre of the past and those which record contemporary theatre for the future. It was first awarded for books published in 1997.
The award is presented annually for a book on British or British related theatre which an independent panel of judges considers to be the best published during the previous year. All new works of original research first published in English on any aspect or genre of theatre and performance are eligible except for play texts and studies of drama as literature.
The three judges, who are different each year, are drawn from the ranks of theatre practitioners, theatre critics, senior academics concerned with theatre, and theatre archivists, with a member of the committee of the Society for Theatre Research as chair.
Entry for books with 2024 copyright will close on 20 January 2025. For submission details or more information, publishers should contact theatrebookprize@str.org.uk
2025 Judges (for books published 2024)
Lucy Munro
Lucy Munro is Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at King’s College London. She is the author of three books: Children of the Queen’s Revels: A Jacobean Theatre Repertory (2005), Archaic Style in English Literature, 1590-1674 (2013) and Shakespeare in the Theatre: The King’s Men (2020). Her editions of early modern plays include Dekker, Ford and Rowley’s The Witch of Edmonton in the Arden Early Modern Drama series (2016). She is currently writing a new history of the Globe and Blackfriars playhouses.
Gary Naylor
Gary Naylor has written on theatre, opera and dance for BroadwayWorld since 2008 and for The Arts Desk since 2020. He has a regular cricket column at theguardian.com during the season and also writes occasional features. He has recently taken on a role promoting outreach for the Critics' Circle Drama Section. From 1990 - 2010, he worked at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, the last four years of which he served as Associate Dean, Faculty of Media. He is proud to have seen a very early performance of Blood Brothers in Liverpool in 1983 - he is less proud to have written it off as too sentimental to succeed.
Tricia Thorns
After a Classics degree from Nottingham University and then a successful career as an actress in West End and regional theatre, TV and film, Tricia put on a production of Black ‘Ell, an anti-war play from 1916 as a protest against the Iraq war in 2003. Since then she has directed many plays, mainly through Two’s Company of which she is the Artistic Director. Her speciality is rediscovering great plays from the past which have been unjustly forgotten, including a series of plays written during WW1 including Red Night and What the Women Did, then John Van Druten’s London Wall, Hemingway’s Fifth Column, Bodies by James Saunders and The Cutting of the Cloth and Don’t Destroy Me by Michael Hastings, all in London theatres.
Previous winners (by year of publication)
2023 – Out for Blood by Chris Adams (Bloomsbury)
2022- An Actor’s Life in 12 Productions by Oliver Ford Davies (Book Guild)
2021 – Stirring Up Sheffield by Colin and Tedd George (Wordville)
2020 – Black British Women’s Theatre by Nicola Abram (Palgrave Macmillan)
2019 – Dark Star: A Biography of Vivien Leigh by Alan Strachan (I B Tauris)
2018 – Year of the Mad King: The King Lear Diaries by Antony Sher (Nick Hern Books)
2017 – Balancing Acts by Nicholas Hytner (Jonathan Cape)
2016 – Stage Managing Chaos by Jackie Harvey with Tim Kelleher (McFarland)
2015 – The Censorship of British Drama 1900-1968 by Steve Nicholson (University of Exeter Press)
2014 – Oliver! by Marc Napolitano (Oxford University Press)
2013 – The National Theatre Story by Daniel Rosenthal (Oberon)
2012 – Mr Foote’s Other Leg by Ian Kelly (Picador)
2011 – Covering McKellen by David Weston (Rickshaw Publishing)
2010 – The Reluctant Escapologist by Mike Bradwell (Nick Hern Books)
2009 – Different Drummer: the Life of Kenneth Macmillan by Jann Parry (Faber & Faber)
2008 – Theatre and Globalisation: Irish Drama in the Celtic Tiger Era by Patrick Lonergan (Palgrave Macmillan)
2007 – State of the Nation by Michael Billington (Faber & Faber)
2006 – John Osborne: A Patriot for Us by John Heilpern (Chatto & Windus)
2005 – 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro (Faber & Faber)
2004 – Margot Fonteyn by Meredith Daneman (Penguin/Viking)
2003 – National Service by Richard Eyre (Bloomsbury)
2002 – A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000 by Christopher Morash (Cambridge University Press)
2001 – Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing, 1840-1880 by Jim Davis & Victor Emeljanow
– (Iowa University Press/University of Hertfordshire Press)
2000 – Politics, Prudery and Perversions…. Censoring the English Stage 1901-1968 by Nicholas de Jongh (Methuen)
1999 – Garrick by Ian McIntyre (Allen Lane)
1998 – Threads of Time by Peter Brook (Methuen)
1997 – Peggy: the Life of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent by Colin Chambers (Nick Hern)
Book Prize Archive
The Book Prize has been awarded each year since 1997.
Click on the links for more information.
2024 (books published in 2023)
2023 (books published in 2022)
2022 (books published 2021)
2021 (books published 2020)
2020 (books published 2019)
2019 (books published 2018)
2018 (books published 2017)
2017 (books published 2016)
2016 (books published 2015)
2015 (books published 2014)
2014 (books published 2013)
2013 (books published 2012)
2012 (books published 2011)
2011 (books published 2010)
2010 (books published 2009)
2009 (books published 2008)
2008 (books published 2007)
2007 (books published 2006)
2006 (books published 2005)
2005 (books published 2004)
2004 (books published 2003)
2003 (books published 2002)
2002 (books published 2001)
2001 (books published 2000)
2000 (books published 1999)
1999 (books published 1998)
1998 (books published 1997)