It`s a shame that we cannot enjoy the usual reception ceremony this year and we must all hope that this most resilient of professions will come through this most testing of times. This happily reflects how the theatre and its related subjects continue to feature with publishers. “I am delighted that Dark Star, my biography of Vivien Leigh, has won the STR Theatre Book Prize, especially given the strength of the short-list opposition. On learning that Dark Star was the winner of the Theatre Book Prize author Alan Strachan made this response: ‘It has been a joy and a privilege to read all the books submitted, and being prompted to remember heady days and evenings in live theatres has been a boon during a period of national lockdown where we have been so starved of live entertainment of any kind whatsoever.’ Theatre Book Prize Judge Professor Edith Hall, writes: Shakespeare Spelt Ruin: The Life of Frederick Balsir Chatterton, Drury Lane’s Last Bankrupt by Robert Whelan (Jacob Tonson)

Playwriting: Structure, Character, How and What to Write by Stephen Jeffreys and Dr Maeve McKeown (Nick Hern Books) Poser (Routledge)ĭark Star: A Biography of Vivien Leigh by Alan Strachan (I B Tauris)Īn Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance by Robert Leach (Routledge) The Birth of Modern Theatre: Rivalry, Riots, and Romance in the Age of Garrick by Norman S. The Art of the Artistic Director: Conversations with Leading Practitioners by Christopher Haydon (Methuen Drama) The winner had been chosen from the following short list (scroll down for images of these books and links to more information): The announcement was made remotely in lieu of the usual prize-giving ceremony at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Dark Star: A Biography of Vivien Leigh by Alan Strachan has been awarded the Society for Theatre Research Theatre Book Prize (for books published in 2019).

Dark Star by Alan Strachan