The judges for this year’s Theatre Book Prize have just been announced by the Society for Theatre Research, which makes this annual award to the book the panel considers the best of the year about British or British-related theatre.
Theatre professionals will be represented by Olivier Award winning director Charlotte Westenra, probably best known for her work with the Donmar and the Tricycle and especially for Lower Ninth (Donmar at Trafalgar Studios), Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Donmar Warehouse), Darfur (with Nicholas Kent, Tricycle Theatre) and Gladiator Games (Sheffield Theatre and Theatre Royal Stratford East).
Journalist Kate Bassett will represent the critics, a contributor to newspapers and radio programmes on theatre topics and, until recently, theatre critic on the Independont on Sunday, from which she has notoriously just been sacked along with all their arts critic. She was short-listed for the prize herself for her acclaimed In Two Minds: A Biography of Jonathan Miller.
Andy Lavender, Professor of Theatre & Performance and Head of the School of Arts at the University of Surrey, will be the academic member of the panel. He was previously Dean of Research at Central School of Speech & Drama, University of London and is artistic director of the theatre / performance company Lightwork for which he has directed many productions. Publications include Hamlet in Pieces: Shakespeare reworked by Peter Brook, Robert Lepage and Robert Wilson.
Chairing the panel will be Brtish Theatre Guide contributing critic Howard Loxton representing the Society for Theatre Research.
This prize was established in 1998 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the foundation of the Society for Theatre Research. The first winner was Colin Chambers’s The Life of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent and recent titles to carry off the prize have included State of the Nation by Michael Billington, books by actors and directors such as The Reluctant Escapologist by Mike Bradwell, Covering McKellen by David Weston Mr Foote's Other Leg by Ian Kelly and definitive biographies like John Osborne: A Patriot for Us by John Heilpern and Different Drummer: the Life of Kenneth Macmillan by Jann Parry
Last year’s judges had some sixty books from which to choose. This year’s team looks forward to putting in a lot of reading before they announce their short list early next spring.