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