Barnard Hewitt Award

Deadline: Nominated books should reach the committee members by April 16, 2013.

Purpose and Sponsors: The Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History is awarded each year to the best book in “theatre history or cognate disciplines” published during the previous calendar year (2012). The award carries a cash value of $2000. ASTR handles the selection process for the award, while the Department of Theater at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign provides the monetary prize. Illinois initiated the Award many years ago to honor its founding department chair, Barnard Hewitt.

Background: Barnard Hewitt was born in 1906 and loved the theater from childhood. At Cornell University, where he earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees, he focused his studies on dramatic literature and theater. He taught at the University of Colorado, Montana State University, and Brooklyn College before joining the faculty of the University of Illinois in 1948. There he headed the Theater division of the Department of Speech and quickly set up a doctoral program in Theater. In 27 years, until his retirement in 1975, Professor Hewitt directed 90 or so doctoral dissertations. His seminal work was Theatre U.S.A., for which he collected and evaluated countless descriptions of U.S. theater that had never been studied before. Theatre U.S.A. can be said to have set the course for all future studies of American theater. In addition to his other accomplishments, Professor Hewitt assumed the first editorship of Educational Theatre Journal (now Theatre Journal). ASTR acknowledges the continued generosity of the Department of Theatre at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, which supports this award in Barnard Hewitt's memory.

Eligibility: Eligible books must have been published in 2012. They must be written by a scholar or scholars residing in the Americas, or by a scholar or scholars located outside the Americas but writing on an American topic. Plays, edited collections, and anthologies are not eligible for this prize. Authors wishing to be considered for the award should contact their publishers about nominating them.

Nomination: Publishers are invited to send one copy of each book they wish to be considered to each member of the 2012 Barnard Hewitt Committee:

David Román, 1860 Silverwood Terrace, Los Angeles, CA 90026

Judith Sebesta, 5707 Jamboree Ct., Austin, TX 78731

Mechele Leon, Department of Theatre, University of Kansas, 1530 Naismith Dr., Lawrence, KS 66045

Valleri Hohman, Department of Theatre, University of Illinois, 4-122 Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana IL 61801

Please direct questions for the 2013 competition to David Román ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Evaluation: The winning book will be judged as innovative in its approach to material, meticulous in its historical scholarship, and original in its conclusions.

Notification: The winner will be notified by August 31, 2013.