Katharine Worth, who died on 28 January 2015, was a key member of the editorial team of Theatre Notebook from 1987 to 1997, ten years during which editors and contributors alike benefitted from her astute critical and scholarly gifts, her love of the theatre and her generous, collegial support. (She was made an honorary Life Member of the Society for Theatre Research in 1997.) Her service on other editorial boards – the Yeats Annual, and Modern Drama reflected the range of her engagement with theatre and drama, and her work on Irish drama – in particular Wilde, Yeats and Beckett – had international significance, reorienting and enriching the field. Her long career in London’s institutions of Higher Education began in 1948, and the development of Drama and Theatre Studies as a distinct discipline is reflected in her progress, by way of a lectureship and readership in English Literature, to the chair of Drama and Theatre Studies in the University of London at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (from 1985 to 1987) and a visiting professorship (from 1987 to 1996) at King’s College London. Active in theatre as well as scholarship, engaging and kind as a colleague and teacher, Katharine was a vital force to be reckoned with and a colleague to be valued, and her achievements will be celebrated by all who had the privilege of working with her.