George Freedley Memorial Award

For more information about the Theatre Library Association, sponsors of this award, click here.

2017     Spectacular men : race, gender, and nation on the early American stage by Sarah E. Chinn; Special Jury Prize: Ellen Stewart presents : fifty years of La MaMa Experimental Theater by Cindy Rosenthal
2016     Fortune's fool : the life of John Wilkes Booth by Terry Alford; Special Jury Prize: Ira Aldridge by Bernth Lindfors
2015     Ming Cho Lee : a life in design by Arnold Aronson
2014     Wonder of wonders : a cultural history of "Fiddler on the roof" by Alisa Solomon; Special Jury Prize: Fosse by Sam Wasson
2013     The TLA Book Awards were not presented in 2013.
2012     Great lengths : seven works of marathon theatre by Jonathan Kalb; Special Jury Prize: BAM : the complete works, edited by Steven Serafin
2011     Contested Will : who wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro; Special Jury Prize: Finishing the hat : collected lyrics (1954-1981) with attendant comments, principles, heresies, grudges, whines and anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim
2010     The pantomime life of Joseph Grimaldi : laughter, madness and the story of Britain's greatest comedian by Andrew McConnell Stott; Special Jury Prize: The American play : 1787-2000 by Marc Robinson
2009     Babylon girls : black women performers and the shaping of the modern by Jayna Brown
2008     The enchanted years of the stage : Kansas City at the crossroads of American theater, 1870-1930 by Felicia Hardison Londrè
2007     The masks of Anthony and Cleopatra by Marvin Rosenberg; Special Jury Prizes: Lady in the dark : biography of a musical by Bruce D. McClung; Wagner and the art of the theatre by Patrick Carnegy
2006     Charlotte : being a true account of an actress's flamboyant adventures in eighteenth-century London's wild and wicked theatrical world by Kathryn Shevelow; Special Jury Prize: Susan Glaspell : her life and times by Linda Ben-Zvi
2005     Striptease : the untold history of the girlie show by Rachel Shteir; Special Jury Prize: Broadway musicals : the 101 greatest shows of all time by Ken Bloom and Frank Vlastnik
2004     A history of African American theatre by Errol G. Hill and James V. Hatch; Special Jury Prize: Everything was possible : the birth of the musical Follies by Ted Chapin
2003     Ridiculous! : the theatrical life and times of Charles Ludlam by David Kaufman; Special Jury Prize: The staging of drama in the medieval church by Dunbar H. Ogden
2002     Harlequin unmasked : the commedia dell'arte and porcelain sculpture by Meredith Chilton; Honorable Mention: Dario Fo & Franca Rame : artful laughter by Ron Jenkins
2001     The economics of the British stage, 1800-1914 by Tracy C. Davis; Honorable Mention: The changing room : sex, drag, and theatre by Laurence Senelick
2000     Edward Albee : a singular journey : a biography by Mel Gussow; Honorable Mention: Hirschfeld : on line by Al Hirschfeld
1999     Stephen Sondheim : a life by Meryle Secrest; Honorable Mention: The Cambridge history of American theatre : volume one : Beginnings to 1870, edited by Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby
1998     Our moonlight revels : A midsummer night's dream in the theatre by Gary Jay Williams; Honorable Mention: John Barrymore, Shakespearean actor by Michael A. Morrison
1997     Damned to fame : the life of Samuel Beckett by James Knowlson; Honorable Mention: Speak low (when you speak love) : the letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, edited by Lys Symonette and Kim H. Kowalke
1996     Tom : the unknown Tennessee Williams by Lyle Leverich; Honorable Mention: Mrs. Jordan's profession : the actress and the prince by Claire Tomalin
1995     Women and the American theatre : actresses and audiences, 1790-1870 by Faye E. Dudden; Honorable Mention: The Cambridge illustrated history of British theatre by Simon Trussler
1994     Tragic muse : Rachel of the Comédie-Française by Rachel M. Brownstein; Honorable Mention: Looking at Shakespeare : a visual history of twentieth-century performance by Dennis Kennedy
1993     The masks of Hamlet by Marvin Rosenberg; Honorable Mention: The first English actresses : women and drama, 1660-1700 by Elizabeth Howe
1992     Horrible prettiness : burlesque and American culture by Robert C. Allen; Honorable Mention: Entrances & exits : a life in and out of the theatre by Norris Houghton
1991     The Commedia dell'arte in Paris, 1644-1697 by Virginia Scott; Honorable Mention: The house of Barrymore by Margot Peters
1990     Paul Robeson : a biography by Martin Bauml Duberman; Honorable Mention: Places of performance : the semiotics of theatre architecture by Marvin Carlson
1989     The age and stage of George L. Fox, 1825-1877 by Laurence Senelick; Honorable Mention: Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann
1988     Shakespeare on the American stage : volume 2 : from Booth and Barrett to Sothern and Marlowe by Charles Shattuck; Honorable Mention: The theatre art of Boris Aronson by Frank Rich and Lisa Aronson
1987     Theater in America : 200 years of plays, players, and productions by Mary C. Henderson; Honorable Mention: Learned pigs and fireproof women : unique, eccentric and amazing entertainers by Ricky Jay
1986     Strindberg by Michael Meyer; Honorable Mention: Granville Barker and the dream of theatre by Dennis Kennedy
1985     Mrs. Pat : the life of Mrs. Patrick Campbell by Margot Peters; Honorable Mention: The theatre duke : George II of Saxe-Meiningen and the German stage by Ann Marie Koller
1984     Realizations : narrative pictorial and theatrical arts in nineteenth-century England by Martin Meisel
1983     Fanny Kemble : leading lady of the nineteenth-century stage : a biography by J. C. Furnas; Honorable Mention: Gordon Craig's Moscow Hamlet : a reconstruction by Laurence Senelick
1982     Clifford Odets, American playwright : the years from 1906 to 1940 by Margaret Brenman-Gibson; Honorable Mention: The antitheatrical prejudice by Jonas Barish
1981     Bernard Shaw and the actresses by Margot Peters
1980     David Garrick, a critical biography by George Winchester Stone Jr. and George M. Kahrl; Honorable Mention: George S. Kaufman : his life, his theatre by Malcolm Goldstein
1979     The shows of London by Richard Altick; Special Citation: Biographical dictionary of actors, actresses, musicians, dancers, managers, and other stage personnel in London, 1660-1800 by Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward Langhans
1978     Theater design by George C. Izenour; Honorable Mention: Vagabond stars : a world history of Yiddish theater by Nahma Sandrow
1977     Jacques Callot : artist of the theatre by Gerald Kahan; Honorable Mention: Shakespeare on the American stage : from the Hallams to Edwin Booth by Charles Shattuck
1976     Stage design : four centuries of scenic invention by Donald Oenslager
1975     Blacking up : the minstrel show in nineteenth century America by Robert C. Toll; Honorable Mention: Life among the playwrights : being mostly the story of the Playwrights' Producing Company, inc by John Wharton
1974     Inigo Jones : the theatre of the Stuart Court by Stephen Orgel and Roy Strong; Honorable Mention: The development of the English playhouse by Richard Leacroft; Honorable Mention: O'Neill : son and artist by Louis Sheaffer
1973     Run-through; a memoir by John Houseman; Honorable Mention: The masks of King Lear by Marvin Rosenberg
1972     Meyerhold's theatre of the grotesque; the post-Revolutionary productions, 1920-1932 by James M. Symons; Honorable Mention: Journey to heartbreak : the crucible years of Bernard Shaw, 1914-1918 by Stanley Weintraub
1971     Broadway by Brooks Atkinson; Honorable Mention: Bright particular star : the life and times of Charlotte Cushman by Joseph Leach
1970     The Hamlet of Edwin Booth by Charles Shattuck
1969     O'Neill, son and playwright by Louis Sheaffer; Honorable Mention: Gordon Craig; the story of his life by Edward Craig; Adolphe Appia, prophet of the modern theater; a profile by Walter Volbach