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.
Read more about Theatre Book Prize: Short List For Theatre Books Published in 2008, Previous Prize Winners
Famous quotes containing the words theatre, book and/or prize:
“If an irreducible distinction between theatre and cinema does exist, it may be this: Theatre is confined to a logical or continuous use of space. Cinema ... has access to an alogical or discontinuous use of space.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“A book that furnishes no quotations is, me judice, no book—it is a plaything.”
—Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866)
“What we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)