The Society for Theatre Research has announced its judges for the Theatre Book Prize 2025.
They are actress and director Tricia Thorns - best known for her revivals of plays written during and about World War I; Dr Lucy Munro, Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at King’s College, London, author of books on Jacobean theatre and Shakespeare’s own company The King’s Men, and theatre critic Gary Naylor, who has written for Broadway World since 2008 and The Arts Desk since 2020.
The chairman will be STR committee member Howard Loxton, who worked in theatre before a career as a writer and publisher and has reviewed theatre in print and online since 2000.
The 2025 STR Theatre Book Prize will be the 27th; it was established in 1998 to celebrate the society’s Golden Jubilee. The prize hopes to encourage the writing and publication of books on British-related theatre history and practice.
Recent winners include Out for Blood: A Cultural History of Carrie the Musical by Chris Adams (Bloomsbury); An Actor’s Life in 12 Productions by Oliver Ford Davies (Book Guild); Stirring Up Sheffield: The Battle to Build the Crucible Theatre by Colin and Tedd George (Wordville) and Black British Women’s Theatre, by Nicola Abrams (Palgrave Macmillan).
Submissions are now being accepted for books published in 2024. The closing date is January 20, 2025 and the shortlist will be announced in May. The winner will be revealed in June.
Titles must be about British or British-related theatre, be in English, first publications and carry the copyright date 2024. They may be on any form of theatrical performance and any aspect of production, history, architecture or management past present or future, but the competition excludes play texts and studies of drama as literature.
Publishers should contact theatrebookprize@str.org.uk for details.
The Society for Theatre Research was founded in 1948 to serve everyone interested in the history and techniques of British and British-related theatre. The society - the oldest of its kind in the English-speaking world, with an international membership - continues to support theatre research through publications, its Theatre Notebook journal, by staging an annual programme of events and funding new research.
Find out more here