Freedley Award Finalists, 2001-Present
The Freedley Award jurors found the following titles to be of particular stand-out note. They are listed here alphabetically by author under the award presentation year.
2024
Elizabeth M. Cizmar, Ernie McClintock and the Jazz Actors Family: Reviving the Legacy, Routledge, 2023.
Carla Della Gatta, Latinx Shakespeares: Staging U.S. Intracultural Theater, University of Michigan Press, 2023.
May Summer Farnsworth, Feminist Rehearsals: Gender at the Theatre in Early Twentieth-Century Argentina and Mexico, University of Iowa Press, 2023.
Katie N. Johnson, Racing the Great White Way: Black Performance, Eugene O’Neill, and the Transformation of Broadway, University of Michigan Press, 2023.
James F. Wilson, Failure, Fascism, and Teachers in American Theatre: Pedagogy of the Oppressors, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
2023
Christine Bold, “Vaudeville Indians” on Global Circuits, 1880s-1930s, Yale University Press, 2022.
Julius B. Fleming, Jr., Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation, New York University Press, 2022.
Esther Kim Lee, Made-Up Asians: Yellowface During the Exclusion Era, University of Michigan Press, 2022.
2022
Soyica Diggs Colbert, Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry, Yale University Press, 2021.
Christin Essin, Working Backstage: A Cultural History and Ethnography of Technical Theater Labor, University of Michigan Press, 2021.
Barry Houlihan, Theatre and Archival Memory: Irish Drama and Marginalized Histories 1951-1977, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
Ilka Saal, Collusions of Fact & Fiction: Performing Slavery in the Works of Suzan-Lori Parks & Kara Walker, University of Iowa Press, 2021.
Sarah Wilbur, Funding Bodies: Five Decades of Dance Making at the National Endowment for the Arts, Wesleyan University Press, 2021.
2021
Ana Martínez, Performance in the Zocalo: Constructing History, Race, and Identity in Mexico’s Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present, University of Michigan Press, 2020.
David Monod, Vaudeville and the Making of Modern Entertainment, 1890-1925, University of North Carolina Press, 2020.
Victoria Phillips, Martha Graham’s Cold War: The Dance of American Diplomacy, Oxford University Press, 2020.
Emilie Pine, The Memory Marketplace: Witnessing Pain in Contemporary Irish and International Theatre, Indiana University Press, 2020.
Bradley Rogers, The Song is You: Musical Theatre and the Politics of Bursting into Song and Dance, University of Iowa Press, 2020.
2020
Desley Deacon, Judith Anderson: Australian Star, First Lady of the American Stage, Kerr Publishing, 2019.
Michelle Granshaw, Irish on the Move: Performing Mobility in American Variety Theatre, University of Iowa Press, 2019.
Noah D. Guynn, Pure Filth: Ethics, Politics, and Religion in Early French Farce, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
Victor Holtcamp, Interchangeable Parts: Acting, Industry, and Technology in US Theatre, University of Michigan Press, 2019.
Daphne P. Lei, Uncrossing the Borders: Performing Chinese in Gendered (Trans)Nationalism, University of Michigan Press, 2019.
Mary McAvoy, Rehearsing Revolutions: The Labor Drama Experiment and Radical Activism in the Early Twentieth Century, University of Iowa Press, 2019.
Laura L. Mielke, Provocative Eloquence: Theater, Violence, and Antislavery Speech in the Antebellum United States, University of Michigan Press, 2019.
Selby Wynn Schwartz, The Bodies of Others: Drag Dances and Their Afterlives, University of Michigan Press, 2019.
2019
Minou Arjomand, Staged: Show Trials, Political Theater, and the Aesthetics of Judgment. Columbia University Press, 2018.
Gina Bloom, Gaming the Stage: Playable Media and the Rise of English Commercial Theater. University of Michigan Press, 2018.
Kate Bredeson, Occupying the Stage: The Theater of May ‘68. Northwestern University Press, 2018.
Isaac Butler and Dan Kois, The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America. Bloomsbury, 2018.
Anselm Heinrich, Theatre in Europe Under German Occupation. Routledge, 2018.
Odai Johnson, Ruins: Classical Theater and Broken Memory. University of Michigan Press, 2018.
Jonathan Shandell, The American Negro Theatre and the Long Civil Rights Era. University of Iowa Press, 2018.
Elizabeth W. Son, Embodied Reckonings: “Comfort Women,” Performance, and Transpacific Redress. University of Michigan Press, 2018.
2018
Arnold Aronson, Editor, The Routledge Companion to Scenography. Routledge, 2017.
Lisa A. Freeman, Antitheatricality and the Body Public. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
Odai Johnson, London in a Box: Englishness and Theatre in Revolutionary America. University of Iowa Press, 2017.
Heather S. Nathans, Hideous Characters and Beautiful Pagans: Performing Jewish Identity on the Antebellum American Stage. University of Michigan Press, 2017.
Sam Wasson, Improv Nation: How We Made a Great American Art. Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.
Matthew Wilson Smith, The Nervous Stage: Nineteenth-Century Neuroscience and the Birth of Modern Theatre. Oxford University Press, 2017.
2017
Robert S. Bader, Four of the Three Musketeers: The Marx Brothers on Stage. Northwestern University Press, 2016.
David Carlyon, The Education of a Circus Clown: Mentors, Audiences, Mistakes. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Julia H. Fawcett, Spectacular Disappearances: Celebrity and Privacy, 1696-1801. University of Michigan Press, 2016.
David Monod, The Soul of Pleasure: Sentiment and Sensation in Nineteenth-Century American Mass Entertainment. Cornell University Press, 2016.
Dassia N. Posner, The Director’s Prism: E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde. Northwestern University Press, 2016.
Joel Schechter, Eighteenth-Century Brechtians: Theatrical Satire in the Age of Walpole. University of Exeter Press, 2016.
Richard Schoch, Writing the History of the British Stage, 1660–1900. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Jack Viertel, The Secret Life of the American Musical. Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.
Robin O. Warren, Women on Southern Stages, 1800-1865: Performance, Gender and Identity in a Golden Age of American Theater. McFarland, 2016.
Jonas Westover, The Shuberts and Their Passing Shows: The Untold Tale of Ziegfeld’s Rivals. Oxford University Press, 2016.
2016
Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson, Ziegfeld and His Follies. University Press of Kentucky, 2015.
Jim Davis, Comic Acting and Portraiture in Late Georgian and Regency England. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
James Grissom, Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog. Knopf, 2015.
Robert Henke, Poverty & Charity in Early Modern Theater and Performance. University of Iowa Press, 2015.
Michael Riedel, Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway. Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Brian Seibert, What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing. Farrah, Straus and Giroux, 2015.
James Shapiro, The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Daniel J. Watermeier, American Tragedian: The Life of Edwin Booth. University of Missouri Press, 2015.
Timothy R. White, Blue-Collar Broadway. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
2015
Rick DesRochers, New Humor in the Progressive Era: Americanization and the Vaudeville Comedian. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Jenna M. Gibbs, Performing the Temple of Liberty: Slavery, Theater, and Popular Culture in London and Philadelphia, 1760-1850. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.
Stephen H. Grant, Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.
John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh. Norton, 2014.
Paige McGinley, Staging the Blues: From Tent Shows to Tourism. Duke University Press, 2014.
2014
Evan Baker. From the Score to the Stage: An Illustrated History of Opera Production and Staging. University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Ninotchka Devorah Bennahum. Carmen: A Gypsy Geography. Wesleyan University Press, 2013.
Lauren R. Clay. Stagestruck: The Business of Theater in Eighteenth-Century France and Its Colonies. Cornell University Press, 2013.
Mary Simonson. Body Knowledge. Oxford University Press, 2013.
Andrew Sofer. Dark Matter. University of Michigan Press, 2013.
2013
The TLA Book Awards were not presented in 2013.
2012
Mark Bayer. Theatre, Community, and Civic Engagement in Jacobean London. University of Iowa Press, 2011.
Jonathan Croall. John Gielgud: From Matinee Idol to Movie Star. Methuen Drama and Bloomsbury, 2011.
Michael Dobson. Shakespeare and Amateur Performance: A Cultural History. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Alan D. Filewod. Committing Theatre: Theatre Radicalism and Political Intervention in Canada. Between the Lines, 2011.
Nadine Holdsworth. Joan Littlewood’s Theatre. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Yael Tamar Lewin. Night’s Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins. Wesleyan University Press, 2011.
John Lithgow. Drama: An Actor’s Education. Harper, 2011.
James S. Marino. Owning William Shakespeare: The King’s Men and Their Intellectual Property. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
Judith Pascoe. The Sarah Siddons Audio Files: Romanticism and the Lost Voice. University of Michigan Press, 2011.
Kristin L. Spangenberg and Deborah W. Walk (Editors). The Amazing American Circus Poster: The Strobridge Lithographing Company. The Cincinnati Art Museum and The Ringling Museum of Art, 2011.
2011
Milly S. Barranger. A Gambler’s Instinct: The Story of Broadway Producer Cheryl Crawford. Southern Illinois University Press, 2010.
Andrew Davis. America’s Longest Run: A History of the Walnut Street Theatre. Keystone, 2010.
Constance Valis Hill. Tap Dancing America. Oxford, 2010.
Felicity Nussbaum. Rival Queens: Actresses, Performance and the Eighteenth-Century British Theater. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
David Roberts. Thomas Betterton: The Greatest Actor of the Restoration Stage. Cambridge, 2010.
Gillian M. Rodger. Champagne Charlie and Pretty Jemima: Variety Theater in the Nineteenth Century. University of Illinois Press, 2010.
Sjeng Scheijen. Diaghilev: A Life. Oxford, 2010.
Larry Stempel. Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater. W.W. Norton, 2010.
2010
Christopher Bigsby. Arthur Miller. Harvard University Press, 2009.
Martin Butler. The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
John Koegel. Music in German Immigrant Theater: New York City 1840-1940. University of Rochester Press, 2009.
Heather S. Nathans. Slavery and Sentiment on the American Stage, 1787-1861: Lifting the Veil of Black. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Margaret Rogerson. The York Mysteries, 1951-2006. University of Toronto Press, 2009.
David Savran. Highbrow/Lowdown: Theater, Jazz, and the Making of the New Middle Class. University of Michigan Press, 2009.
Marlis Schweitzer. When Broadway Was the Runway: Theater, Fashion, and American Culture. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
Tiffany Stern. Documents of Performance in Early Modern England. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
2009
Anne Varty. Children and Theatre in Victorian Britain. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008.
Yael Zarhy-Levo. The Making of Theatrical Reputations: Studies from the Modern London Theatre. University of Iowa Press, 2008.
2008
Tim Carter. Oklahoma: The Making of an American Musical. Yale University Press, 2007.
Gabrielle H. Cody and Evert Sprinchorn, Editors. The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. Columbia University Press, 2007.
Simon Goldhill. How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today. University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Jodi Kanter. Performing Loss: Rebuilding Community Through Theater and Writing. Southern Illinois University Press, 2007.
Kay Li. Bernard Shaw and China: Cross-Cultural Encounters. University Press of Florida, 2007.
Benjamin McCarter. The Man Who Was Rip Van Winkle: Joseph Jefferson and Nineteenth-Century American Theatre. Yale University Press, 2007.
2007
Stephen Banfield. Jerome Kern. Yale University Press, 2006.
Jacky Bratton and Ann Featherstone. The Victorian Clown. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Daphne A. Brooks. Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910. Duke University Press, 2006.
Louis Chude-Sokei. The Last “Darky”: Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora. Duke University Press, 2006.
Andrew B. Harris. The Performing Set: The Broadway Designs of William and Jean Eckart. University of North Texas Press, 2006.
Stefan Kanfer. Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yiddish Theatre in America. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
Raymond Knapp. The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity. Princeton University Press, 2006.
Juliet McMains. Glamour Addiction: Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry. Wesleyan University Press, 2006.
Kim Marra. Strange Duets: Impresarios and Actresses in the American Theatre, 1865-1914. University of Iowa Press, 2006.
C. W. Marshall. The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Brenda Murphy. The Provincetown Players and the Culture of Modernity. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Ron Rosenbaum. The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups. Random House, 2006.
Jessica Sternfeld. The Megamusical. Indiana University Press, 2006.
2006
Doris Alexander. Eugene O’Neill’s Last Plays: Separating Art from Autobiography. University of Georgia Press, 2005.
Eileen Blumenthal. Puppetry: A World History. Harry N. Abrams, 2005.
Charlotte M. Canning. The Most American Thing in America: Circuit Chautauqua as Performance. University of Iowa Press, 2005.
Terry Coleman. Olivier. Henry Holt and Company, 2005.
Apana Bhargava Dharwadker. Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India Since 1947. University of Iowa Press , 2005.
John Anthony Gilvey. Before the Parade Passes By: Gower Champion and the Glorious American Musical. St. Martin’s Press, 2005.
David Leopold. Irving Berlin’s Show Business: Broadway – Hollywood – America. Harry N. Abrams, 2005 (also a TLA Award Finalist).
Larry McMurtry. The Colonel and Little Missie: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America. Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Sarah Meer. Uncle Tom Mania: Slavery, Minstrelsy, and Transatlantic Cultural in the 1850s. University of Georgia Press, 2005.
Craig Morrison. Theaters. W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.
Carol Ockman and Kenneth E. Silver. Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama. Yale University Press, 2005.
Richard Schickel. Elia Kazan: A Biography. HarperCollins, 2005.
James Shapiro. A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599. HarperCollins, 2005.
Louis S. Warren. Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West Show. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
2005
Marjorie Barber. Shakespeare After All. Pantheon Books, 2004.
Thomas F. DeFrantz. Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Ross W. Duffin. Shakespeare’s Songbook. W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
Penny Farfan. Women, Modernism, and Performance. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Arthur Gewirtz. Sidney Howard and Clare Eames: American Theater’s Perfect Couple of the 1920s. McFarland, 2004.
Stephen Greenblatt. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
Deborah Jowitt. Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance. Simon & Schuster, 2004.
Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon. Broadway: The American Musical. Bulfinch Press, 2004.
Raymond Knapp. The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity. Princeton University Press, 2004.
Martha Schmoyer LoMonaco. Summer Stock!: An American Theatrical Phenomenon. Palgrave, 2004.
Roslyn Poignant. Professional Savages: Captive Lives and Western Spectacle. Yale University Press, 2004.
Carol Rocamora. Acts of Courage: Vaclav Havel’s Life in the Theater. Smith and Kraus, 2004.
Mona Z. Smith. Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee. Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004.
2004
Martin Gottfried. Arthur Miller: His Life and Work. Da Capo Press, 2003.
Brenda Dixon Gottschild. The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool. Palgrave, 2003.
Frank Hauser and Russell Reich. Notes on Directing: The Classic Guide to the Director’s Craft. RCR Creative Press, 2003.
Mark Eden Horowitz. Sondheim on Music: Minor Details and Major Decisions. Scarecrow Press, 2003.
John Houchin. Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Marvin McAllister. White People Do Not Know How to Behave at Entertainments Designed for Ladies and Gentlemen of Colour: William Brown’s African and American Theater. University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Stephen Orgel. Imagining Shakespeare. Palgrave, 2003.
Nancy Reynolds and Malcolm McCormick. No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century. Yale University Press, 2003.
Lisa Jo Sagolla. The Girl Who Fell Down: A Biography of Joan McCracken. Northeastern University Press, 2003.
Renee M. Sentilles. Performing Menken: Adah Isaacs Menken and the Birth of American Celebrity. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Helen Sheehy. Eleonora Duse: A Biography. Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
Dominic Shellard. Kenneth Tynan: A Life. Yale University Press, 2003.
2003
Xiaomei Chen. Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China. University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
Janet M. Davis. The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top. University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Jody Enders. Death by Drama and Other Medieval Urban Legends. University of Chicago Press, 2002.
James F. Gaines (Editor). The Moliere Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002.
Paul Carter Harrison and others (Editors). Black Theater: Ritual Performance in the African Diaspora. Temple University Press, 2002.
Mimi Herbert with Nur S. Rahardjo. Voices of the Puppet Masters: The Wayang Golek Theater of Indonesia. University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
Foster Hirsch. Kurt Weill on Stage: From Berlin to Broadway. Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
David Krasner. A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theater, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance, 1910-1927. Palgrave, 2002.
Patricia McDonnell, Editor. On the Edge of Your Seat: Popular Theater and Film in Early Twentieth-Century American Art. Yale University Press, 2002.
Ira Nadel. Tom Stoppard: A Life. Palgrave, 2002.
2002
Steven Bach. Dazzler: The Life and Times of Moss Hart. Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.
Karin Barber. The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theater. Indiana University Press, 2001.
Augusto Boal. Hamlet and the Baker’s Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics. Routledge, 2001.
Victor Borovsky. A Triptych from the Russian Theatre: An Artistic Biography of the Komissarzhevsky Family. University of Iowa Press, 2001.
Lawrence M. Clopper. Drama, Play, and Game: English Festive Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Period. University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Jim Davis and Victor Emeljanow. Reflecting the Audience: London Theatregoing,1840-1880. University of Iowa Press, 2001.
Mary C. Henderson. Mielziner: Master of Modern Stage Design. Watson-Guptill Publications, 2001.
Greg Lawrence. Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2001.
Woody Register. The Kid Coney Island: Fred Thompson and the Rise of American Amusements. Oxford University Press, 2001.
2001
Arthur Bloom. Joseph Jefferson: Dean of the American Theatre. Frederic C. Beil Publisher, 2000.
Thomas F. Connolly. George Jean Nathan and the Making of Modern American Drama Criticism. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/Associated University Press, 2000.
David Farneth with Elmar Juchem and Dave Stein. Kurt Weill: A Life in Pictures and Documents. Overlook Press, 2000.
Arthur and Barbara Gelb. O’Neill: Life with Monte Cristo. Applause Books, 2000.
Eve Golden. Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld’s Broadway. University Press of Kentucky, 2000.
Constance Valis Hill. Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers. Oxford University Press, 2000 (also a TLA Award Finalist).
Merlin Holland and Rupert-Hart Davis (Editors). The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. Henry Holt, 2000.
Joy S. Kasson. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History. Hill & Wang, 2000.
Annette Lust. From the Greek Mimes to Marcel Marceau and Beyond… Scarecrow Press, 2000.
Jane Moody. Illegitimate Theatre in London, 1770-1840. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Frank Rich. Ghost Light: A Memoir. Random House, 2000.
Virginia Scott. Moliere: A Theatrical Life. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Mark Evan Swartz. Oz Before the Rainbow: L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard on Stage and Screen to 1939. Johns Hopkins University, 2000 (also a TLA Award HONORABLE MENTION).
Jeffrey Veidlinger. The Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage. Indiana University Press, 2000.