Theatre Book Prize 2019 nominees announced

Antony Sher, Daniel Rosenthal and Amber Massie-Blomfield are among the authors shortlisted for this year’s Theatre Book Prize.

The annual award, run by the Society for Theatre Research, celebrates books published within the same year on theatre history and practice.

The nominees this year include Year of the Mad King: The Lear Diaries, a book exploring the process behind Sher’s performance as King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2016.

Rosenthal, who won the prize in 2014 for his book on the history of the National Theatre, is nominated again for editing Dramatic Exchanges, a collection of letters about the NT.

Massie-Blomfield is nominated for Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die.

Also on the shortlist are Modern Playhouses by Alistair Fair, Peggy to her Playwrights – a collection of the letters of agent Margaret Ramsay edited by Colin Chambers – and Jerri Daboo’s Staging British South Asian Culture.

‘Fuck the critics’ – remembering the pithy advice of fearsome agent Peggy Ramsay

The winner will be announced on June 11, with this year’s judging panel comprising New Diorama artistic director David Byrne, journalist Daisy Bowie-Sell and academic Jim Davies. It is chaired by Howard Loxton from the Society of Theatre Research.

Nicholas Hytner won last year’s prize for his book Balancing Acts, which charted his time as director of the National Theatre.

Nicholas Hytner’s Balancing Acts wins 2018 Theatre Book Prize