The short list has been announced for this year’s Sheridan Morley Prize, which commemorates the life of writer, director and critic Sheridan Morley, who was himself the biographer of leading theatre luminaries.
It is awarded annually to the best theatrical biography, autobiography or diary published in the preceding calendar year as judged by a panel of literary and theatrical practitioners, which includes the previous year’s winner and is chaired by critic and producer Ruth Leon, Morley’s widow and occasional co-author.
This year’s judges are John Lahr, author and former principal theatre critic of The New Yorker, whose biography Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh won last year, actress Kika Markham, whose memoir Our Time of Day: My Life with Corin Redgrave was short-listed last year, and Benedict Nightingale, journalist and former theatre critic for The Times.
Their short list consists of
- The Blue Touch Paper by David Hare, a first volume of autobiography.
- John Osborne 'Anger is not about...' by Peter Whitebrook, a biography of the actor and playwright.
- Let Me Play The Lion Too/ How to Be an Actor by Michael Pennington, which draws on fifty years experience of life as an actor.
- A Night in the Emperor's Garden by Qais Akbar Omar and Stephen Landrigan, about a group of Afghan actors who first came together in 2005 to stage Love’s Labours Lost in Kabul.
- 1606 William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear by James Shapiro, which brings to life Shakespeare’s world in the year he wrote King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.
The winner will be announced and the prize of £2000 awarded on 2 March at a private ceremony at the Garrick Club.
The Sheridan Morley Prize was first presented in 2007 and previous winners have included Patrick Dromgoole, Michael Holroyd, Andrew McConnell Stott, Simon Callow, Stephen Sondheim, Rupert Everett, and Michael Blakemore.