We are currently reviewing the scope and purpose of following TaPRA prizes:
David Bradby Award
Early Career Researcher Award
Editing Award
We will announce new arrangements/prizes in September 2020 and open nominations shortly afterwards.
for work on suffrage theatre and the Actress Franchise League.
TaPRA is delighted to award its 2019 Early Career Researcher Prize to Dr Naomi Paxton, whose work represents a fresh, detailed account of an important period of British theatre. Her rigorously researched monograph, Stage Rights! (Manchester University Press, 2018), traces the significance of the Actresses’ Franchise League from their founding in 1908, through the outbreak of WWI and into the mid twentieth-century. By interrogating its activities in terms of a blurring between ‘acting’ and ‘being’, the panel noted that Dr Paxton offers an unexpected extension of existing analyses of the AFL’s work and prompts new readings of the function of theatre in/as society. Additionally, in advancing understandings of theatrical, political, and social activism in the women’s suffrage movement, Dr Paxton’s impactful methods of public engagement (in the form of games, guided walks, exhibition and performances) have made her research accessible to audiences beyond the academy in innovative ways.
for Social Housing in Performance: The English Council Estate on and off Stage (Bloomsbury, 2019)
for research in interdisciplinary Voice Studies.
The Prize consists of a free conference place (membership fee, conference dinner and accommodation excluded) and a cheque for £200.
Naomi Paxton
for work on Suffrage Theatre and the Actresses’ Franchise League.
TaPRA is delighted to award its 2019 Early Career Researcher Prize to Dr Naomi Paxton, whose work represents a fresh, detailed account of an important period of British theatre. Her rigorously researched monograph, Stage Rights! (Manchester University Press, 2018), traces the significance of the Actresses’ Franchise League from their founding in 1908, through the outbreak of WWI and into the mid twentieth-century. By interrogating its activities in terms of a blurring between ‘acting’ and ‘being’, the panel noted that Dr Paxton offers an unexpected extension of existing analyses of the AFL’s work and prompts new readings of the function of theatre in/as society. Additionally, in advancing understandings of theatrical, political, and social activism in the women’s suffrage movement, Dr Paxton’s impactful methods of public engagement (in the form of games, guided walks, exhibition and performances) have made her research accessible to audiences beyond the academy in innovative ways.
for Social Housing in Performance: The English Council Estate on and off Stage (Bloomsbury, 2019)
for research in interdisciplinary Voice Studies.
for work on ‘Translation, Adaptation, Otherness: “Foreignization” in Theatre Practice’ (www.translatingtheatre.com).
Launched right at the point when the UK’s Brexit referendum was reaching its explosive conclusion, the judges felt that the ‘Translation, Adaptation, Otherness’ project represents an important – and deeply timely – investigation of how theatre in translation can be used to address contemporary tensions between varying cultures and languages by disrupting audiences’ expectations. Identifying and addressing a unique problem in a highly innovative way, the project constitutes a significant expansion of our current knowledge of theatre in translation and adaptation, with major implications for both performance scholarship and practice.
for The Contemporary Political Play: Rethinking Dramaturgical Structure (Bloomsbury, 2017)
for Intermedial Praxis and Practice as Research: ‘Doing-Thinking’ in Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
for development of work on audience research including Locating the Audience (Intellect, 2016).
The judges felt that few studies in this field are as successful as this in demonstrating the complexity of research that is able to deliver a real understanding of audience experience while maintaining a sharp critical focus. The work is already having an impact and at a time when the ‘audience experience’ is so often relegated to consumer response and metrics data, Sedgman’s work is a welcome turn to the live and lived experience of and for the people who buy the tickets.
for Theatre, Exhibition, and Curation: Displayed & Performed (Routledge, 2016)
for leadership in the areas of costume and practice research.
Theatres of Learning Disability: Good, Bad, or Plain Ugly? (Palgrave)
The judges felt that from inside, from outside, this project shows change towards place in action and declares its ambition for further work. It is the work of considered scholarship and practice: far reaching, versatile, inclusive and impactful both for the communities with which it worked and for the academic sector which TaPRA represents.
Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism (Palgrave).
Theatre and Aural Attention: Stretching Ourselves (Palgrave)
Watching Weimar Dance (Oxford University Press)
for her co-edited collection, Performance, Madness, Psychiatry: Isolated Acts (Palgrave) and an article in the journal Interdisciplinary Science Reviews.
for his book Avant Garde Theatre Sound: Staging Sonic Modernity (Palgrave)
for his work on the aesthetics and politics of audience participation.
for his work on the aesthetics and politics of immersive theatre.
for his work on Polish and Central European Theatre.
for his extensive work on Live Art.
The Plays of Martin Crimp: Making Theatre Strange (Palgrave)
Trauma/Tragedy: Symptoms of Contemporary Performance (Manchester University Press)
for her work in establishing Performance Philosophy through a range of publications and projects.
Glorious Catastrophe: Jack Smith, Performance and Visual Culture (Manchester University Press)
Trauma/Tragedy: Symptoms of Contemporary Performance (Manchester University Press)
Performance in a Time of Terror: Critical Mimesis and the Age of Uncertainty (Manchester University Press)
Refugees, Theatre and Crisis: Performing Global Identities (Palgrave)
Only current TaPRA members can submit nominations for our awards or elections. Each nomination requires a seconder, who must also be a current member.
Our 2021 conference will be hosted online in partnership with Liverpool Hope University.
Our 2021 conference will be hosted online in partnership with Liverpool Hope University.