Theatre Book Prize
The Theatre Book Prize was established to celebrate the Jubilee of the Society for Theatre Research (founded in Britain in 1948), and to encourage writing and publication of books on theatre history and practice—both those that present the theatre of the past and those that record contemporary theatre for the future. It was first awarded in 1998 for the best new theatre title published in English during 1997. It is now presented annually for a book on British or British related theatre that an independent panel of judges considers the best published in the preceding year. All new works of original research first published in English are eligible, except for play texts and studies of drama as literature. There are three judges, who are different each year. They are drawn from the ranks of people working in theatre: performers, directors, theatre critics, senior academics concerned with theatre, and theatre archivists.
The Prize embraces all aspects and genres of theatre from opera and ballet to circus and music hall, mime and puppetry as well as 'legitimate' forms and, as the list of previous winners shows, entries are drawn from right across the publishing spectrum.
Short list for theatre books published in 2018
- Dramatic Exchanges edited by Daniel Rosenthal (Profile Books)
- Modern Playhouses by Alistair Fair (Oxford University Press)
- Peggy to her Playwrights edited by Colin Chambers (Oberon Books)
- Staging British South Asian Culture by Jerri Daboo (Routledge)
- Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die by Amber Massie-Blomfield (Penned in the Margin)
- Year of the Mad King: The Lear Diaries by Antony Sher (Nick Hern Books) - Winner
Previous Prize Winners
- 1997 The Life of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent by Colin Chambers (Nick Hern)
- 1998 Threads of Time by Peter Brook (Methuen)
- 1999 Garrick by Ian McIntyre (Allen Lane)
- 2000 Politics, Prudery and Perversion.... Censorship 1906-68 by Nicholas de Jongh (Methuen)
- 2001 Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing, 1840-1880 by Jim Davis & Victor Emeljanow (University of Iowa Press/University of Hertfordshire Press)
- 2002 A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000 by Christopher Morash (Cambridge University Press)
- 2003 National Service by Richard Eyre (Bloomsbury)
- 2004 Margot Fonteyn by Meredith Daneman (Penguin/Viking)
- 2005 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro (Faber & Faber)
- 2006 John Osborne: a patriot for us by John Heilpern (Chatto and Windus)
- 2007 State of the Nation by Michael Billington (Faber)
- 2008 Theatre and Globalisation: Irish Drama in the Celtic Tiger Era by Patrick Lonergan
- 2009 Different Drummer: The Life of Kenneth Macmillan by Jann Parry
- 2010 The Reluctant Escapologist by Mike Bradwell
- 2011 Covering McKellen: An Understudy's Tale by David Weston
- 2012 Mr Foote’s Other Leg by Ian Kelly (Picador)
- 2013 The National Theatre Story by Daniel Rosenthal (Oberon)
- 2014 Oliver! by Marc Napolitano (Oxford University Press)
- 2015 The Censorship of British Drama 1900-1968 by Steve Nicholson (University of Exeter Press)
- 2016 Stage Managing Chaos by Jackie Harvey with Tim Kelleher (McFarland)
- 2017 Balancing Acts by Nicholas Hytner (Jonathan Cape)
- 2018 Year of the Mad King: The Lear Diaries by Antony Sher (Nick Hern Books)