The Society for Theatre Research is delighted to reveal that Clive Davis, Dr. Kate Dorney and Kevin Wilson will be the judges for the Theatre Book Prize 2024.

Representing theatre critics, academia and theatre professionals, theatre critic Clive Davis, academic Kate Dorney and theatre PR Kevin Wilson will appoint a winner as part of a panel chaired by STR Committee Member Howard Loxton.

The STR Theatre Book Prize 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.

The 2023 winner was Oliver Ford Davies’ An Actor’s Life in Twelve Productions.  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.

The Judges

Clive Davis

Clive Davis has been chief theatre critic of The Times since 2020. He has more than forty years of experience in journalism. He started his career as a reporter and editor at West Indian World newspaper in Tottenham before joining the BBC as a news trainee. He began writing for The Times in 1987. When he is not loitering at premieres he writes about the less popular end of popular music, and contributes book reviews on history, politics and race.

Dr. Kate Dorney

Dr Kate Dorney is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance at the University of Manchester and was previously Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Performance at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Her research and teaching interests range from Shakespeare to rock and pop costumes by way of theatre historiography, biography and textual analysis. Her publications include Played in Britain: Modern Theatre in 100 Plays (with F. Gray), The Changing Language of Modern English Theatre 1945-2009 and (with M. Gale) Stage Women 1900-50 and Vivien Leigh: Actress and Icon. She is currently working on a book about Black British playwright Winsome Pinnock and (with Cara Berger) a co-edited collection on Curating Performance for Cambridge University Press.

Kevin Wilson

Theatre PR Kevin Wilson launched his public relations company, KWPR, in 1995 after 18 years as a show-business journalist. He has since become a sought after prize-winning theatre press rep across the West End, UK tours and fringe theatre, handling all kinds of production from the biggest West End musicals, dramas and dance productions to one-man shows.

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 2023. 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.

Entry for titles copyright 2023 closes on 20 January 2024, but to allow for transit problems, late arrivals will be accepted if publishers give notice by then that they are on their way. A short list will be announced in the Spring and the winner at a presentation in June, exact dates to be determined.  Publishers should contact theatrebookprize@str.org.uk for details of where to send books.