PMA Professor J. Ellen Gainor has been awarded the George Freedley Memorial Award Special Jury Prize from the Theatre Library Association for her book, The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory & Dramatic Criticism, co-edited with Catherine Boroughs. The award will be presented at the TLA Awards Ceremony on October 18, and is co-sponsored by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism is the first wide-ranging anthology of theatre theory and dramatic criticism by women writers. Reproducing key primary documents contextualized by short essays, the collection situates women’s writing within, and also reframes the field’s male-defined and male-dominated traditions. Its collection of documents demonstrates women’s consistent and wide-ranging engagement with writing about theatre and performance and offers a more expansive understanding of the forms and locations of such theoretical and critical writing, dealing with materials that often lie outside established production and publication venues. This alternative tradition of theatre writing that emerges allows contemporary readers to form new ways of conceptualizing the field, bringing to the fore a long-neglected, vibrant, intelligent, deeply informed, and expanded canon that generates a new era of scholarship, learning, and artistry.
Founded in 1937, Theatre Library Association supports librarians and archivists affiliated with theatre, dance, performance studies, popular entertainment, motion picture and broadcasting collections.
