The Society for Theatre Research is delighted to reveal that Cindy Marcolina, William Purefoy and Jennifer Thorp will be the judges for the Theatre Book Prize 2023.

Representing theatre critics, academia and theatre professionals, theatre critic Cindy Marcolina, performer William Purefoy and historian Jennifer Thorp will appoint a winner as part of a panel chaired by STR Committee Member Howard Loxton. 

2023 marks the 25th STR Theatre Book Prize, which was established in 1998 to celebrate the Society’s Golden Jubilee. The aim of the Book Prize is to encourage the writing and publication of books on British-related theatre history and practice. 

Recent winners include Stirring Up Sheffield: The Battle to Build the Crucible Theatre by Colin and Tedd George; Black British Women’s Theatre by Nicola Abrams; Year of the Mad King: The King Lear Diaries by Antony Sher; and Balancing Acts by Nick Hytner. Previous members of the judging panel include actors Penelope Keith and Corin Redgrave, director Jatinder Verma, actress-director Yvonne Brewster and critics Michael Billington and Daisy Bowie-Sell.

Submissions are now being accepted for books published in 2022, closing 16 January 2023, with further details of how to nominate a book available below. The shortlist of 2022 titles for the 2023 Theatre Book Prize will be announced in early May and the winner in June 2023. 

The Judges

Cindy Marcolina was born in Italy in 1992. After earning a degree in Entertainment Studies  with a focus on criticism, she moved to London in 2016 to pursue a career in theatre. A  freelance critic and writer, she is a member of the Critics’ Circle and currently the ad interim  secretary of their drama section. She lives in East London surrounded by books and theatre  programmes. 

William Purefoy is a singer and actor whose performances have ranged from plays at  Shakespeare’s Globe and the Bouffes du Nord, to concerts in the Royal Albert Hall and as  counter-tenor with English National Opera, Scottish Opera and internationally from Europe to  New Zealand in roles that have included Ottone in L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Ptolemy in Giulio  Cesare, Ernesto in Il Mondo della luna, Andronico in Tamerlano, Antonio in Gesualdo, Apollo in  Apollo and Hyacinth, Ascanio in Ascanio in Alba and Athamas in Semele. William has made  many recordings, has appeared regularly with vocal groups Cantabile – The London Quartet, I  Fagiolini and Theatre of Voices and was featured in the television series In Search of  Shakespeare and the film Young Victoria. 

Jennifer Thorp is an archivist and dance historian, with a particular interest in the performance  of dance and its historical context in London and Paris, during the late seventeenth and  eighteenth centuries and in theatrical personnel of that era. Her publications include ‘Servile  Bodies? The Status of the Professional Dancer in the late Seventeenth and early Eighteenth  Centuries’; ‘Pierrot Strikes Back: François Nivelon at Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Covent Garden,  1723-1738’, a forthcoming biographical study, The Gentleman Dancing-Master: Mr Isaac and  the English Royal Court from Charles II to Queen Anne and With a Grace not to be Captured:  Representing the Georgian Theatrical Dancer, 1760-1830, co-edited with Professor Michael  Burden, with whom she also organises the Annual Oxford Dance Symposium at New College  Oxford.  

Howard Loxton worked in theatre before a career as a writer and publisher and has reviewed theatre in print and online since 2000. 

Submissions 

To be eligible, titles must be about British or British-related theatre, be in English, first publications and carry the copyright date 2022. They may be on any form of theatrical performance and any aspect of production, history, architecture or management, whether presenting theatre of the past, recording contemporary theatre or looking forward to the future. Play texts and studies of drama as literature are excluded. Publishers should send copies directly to the judges as soon as available. Entry will close on 16 January 2023. Publishers should contact theatrebookprize@str.org.uk for details of where to send books.