The Society announces with deep regret that Howard Loxton, a loved and respected member of the STR for many years, died on June 22nd 2026.

Howard was born in Birmingham and worked as an actor in stage and television and also as stage manager for the English Opera Group, before becoming a journalist. He worked as a freelance journalist, having interviews published in the Guardian and other media outlets, and working as an editor for publishers Paul Hamlyn and Jonathan Cape.

In the STR we knew him best as the indefatigable organiser of the Society’s annual Theatre Book Prize, founded in 1998 to celebrate the Society’s Golden Jubilee. The winning books have covered an enormous range of theatrical themes by internationally distinguished authors from Peter Brook to Antony Sher – click the link above for more history and a full list. In the last couple of years Howard gradually handed the organisation over to the new team of Gary Naylor and Kevin Wilson, and the winner of this year’s prize will be announced in due course.

Howard published numerous books on a wide variety of subjects from theatre and circus, mazes and labyrinths to the assassination of President Kennedy, an encyclopaedia of saints and an astonishing number of books about cats. There is a list on his Wikipedia page here.

He will be very much missed.