Winner of 2025 THEATRE BOOK PRIZE revealed
We were at the Royal Court today (20 June) Besties, where the winner of the 2025 Theatre Book Prize was announced as Will Tosh, for Straight Acting: The Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare (Sceptre).
The delighted author said: “This is a surprise. I left my book launch speech in a jacket and now I’m having a flashback!” He went on to say that it had been “a real thrill that people have enjoyed reading the book; I hope it inspires people to keep performing Shakespeare as they want to, reflective of the past and the present.”
Straight Acting poses the intriguing question: Was Shakespeare gay? The answer, both simple and complex, is explored from Shakespeare’s childhood schooling to the representation of queer lives in plays and poems. The book is a passionate call to recognise how queerness powerfully shaped the life and career of the world’s most famous playwright. Judge Gary Naylor said the book “rattles along at a tremendous pace, with vivid evocations of Elizabethan London that are cinematic in the detail, but continually ties the life and work together, acknowledging that there are gaps in the record, but inviting the reader to form their own conclusions with an occasional conspiratorial wink to chivvy us along.”
The Theatre Book Prize is awarded by the Society for Theatre Research. Alongside critic Gary Naylor, the other judges this year were actress and director Tricia Thorns and academic Dr Lucy Munro, chaired by STR Committee Member Howard Loxton.
Also shortlisted were:
Shakespeare and the Royal Actor: Performing Monarchy 1760-1952 by Sally Barnden (Oxford University Press)
A Piece of Work: Playing Shakespeare & Other Stories by Simon Russell Beale (Abacus)
What Would Garrick Do? Or, Acting Lessons from the Eighteenth Century by James Harriman-Smith (Methuen Drama)
Charcoalblue: Designing for Performance by Hugh Pearman (Lund Humphries)
James Graham: State of the Nation Playwright by Maryam Philpott (Palgrave Macmillan)
2025 marks the 27th STR Theatre Book Prize, which was established in 1998 to celebrate the Society’s Golden Jubilee. The aim of the Book Prize is to encourage the writing and publication of books on British-related theatre history and practice.
For more info on The Society of Theatre Research Theatre Book Prize, please click here.