Theatre and Performance Studies » Theatre and Performance Studies News (tag [Awards])

Dr Rashna Nicholson Awarded British Academy 2025-26 Mid-Career Fellowship

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:13:00 GMT

Dr. Rashna Nicholson, Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick, has been selected as a recipient of a 2025-26 British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for her project, "How a Discipline is Born: Performance Studies, the Asian Performing Arts and the Cold War (1955-1995)".

The award, valued at £135,442.69, will fund the first extensive reassessment of the emergence of Performance Studies. It will delineate how the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation-affiliated Asia Society, Japan Society, and JDR 3rd Fund smoothed the way for many moves beyond Western concepts of literature, drama, and the arts, comprising Performance Studies’ ‘broad-spectrum approach’.

Through exemplary case studies of institutional grants and fellowship programs, it will uncover the multi-layered history of how policy makers, experts, academics, and artists benchmarked a transregional consensus on theatre’s role in civil society, thereby assisting the US’ rise to global leadership in the arts.

The British Academy's Mid-Career Fellowships are "designed both to support outstanding individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to promote public understanding and engagement with humanities and social sciences," according to the Academy's website

Nadine Holdsworth to receive the High Sheriff Award

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 09:49:00 GMT

Nadine Holdsworth has been awarded the High Sheriff Award in recognition of her exceptional contributions to the community in the West Midlands (Via her Homelessness project).

Assistant Professor White Wins 2023 TaPRA Early Career Researcher Award

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 13:04:00 GMT

Dr. Bryony White, Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies and Director of Graduate Studies at Warwick's Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, has won the 2023 TaPRA Early Career Researcher Award for her article in the Summer issue of the peer-reviewed Art Journal, 'Returning to The Scene of the Crime: Gendered and Racialized Violence in Ana Mendieta's Rape Scene'.

TOP STORY: Winners of WATE Award

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 13:38:49 GMT

Winners of WATE Award

The Arts Faculty Award recognises the achievements of Warwick's outstanding educators who have enabled excellent learning, creating the conditions within which all students are supported and empowered to succeed and thrive.

Winner - Ian Farnell (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)

Commended - Ronan Hatfull (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)

Winner - David Coates (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)

Dr Julia Peetz, our Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, has been nominated for the prestigious TAPRA prize for her article

Thu, 05 May 2022 10:33:52 GMT

'The Counter-Theatricality of Right-Wing Populist Performance’, Studies in Theatre and Performance (2021): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682761.2021.1964818

Student Prizes 2021: Winners Announced

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 10:14:44 GMT

Congratulations to all of our students who are graduating this week. At our graduation ceremony we usually announce our Student Prizes. We have extended the list of prizes this year to reward group work and to acknowledge practice and research separately. As ever, we also want to acknowledge students who have contributed significantly to the Theatre and Performance Studies, the School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures, and the University during their time here. This year's prizes are as follows:

Research Prize (Dissertation) Josh Myers
Research Prize (Practice) Jana Azuipe
Contribution Prizes: Hannah Khan, Lucy Chamberlain, Angelo Balagtas
Group work prize for process: Niamh Mulcahy, Lyra Cooper, Elia Waymouth, Vishal Ratnajothy (Applying Theatre - Care Home Project)
Group work prize for product: Adam Wilmhurst, Tabitha Collingridge, George Brown, Guillaume Massenet, and Ashwin Rupanagudi (Wired - Short Film).

Clive Barker Award 2021

Tue, 11 May 2021 12:45:08 GMT

Congratulations to our first year students, Jon-Luke Goodman and Cai Kennedy, who have successfully applied to this year's Clive Barker Award. Clive Barker was a pioneering theatre studies scholar. He worked with Arnold Wesker and Joan Littlewood and wrote influential books such as Theatre Games. He worked at Warwick from 1976 until he retired in 1993. This award is designed to provide practical and financial support for Theatre and Performance Studies students who plan to create a piece of extra-curricular performance, with a view to submitting this work to the Edinburgh Festival or a similar public platform.

Their project is provisionally titled The Awakening of Spring and will offer a modern adaptation and de-contextualisation of the play that inspired Spring Awakening; challenging traditional staging and theatrical conventions with heavy elements of technology, performance art and promenade elements. Taking Frank Wedekind’s 1890 play and transposing it into a 21^st Century setting, inspired by the current movement in the light of the death of Sarah Everards’s tragic death. This abstract non-linear deconstruction will also be scrutinising the media, exploring social media and how this relates to physical, domestic and sexual violence.

The students will receive up to £600 to help mount the work and will be given access to rehearsal space and technical support.

Well done Cai and Jon-Luke. We look forward to seeing how this project develops!

Annual Clive Barker Award: Applications Open

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 10:03:41 GMT

Clive Barker was a pioneering theatre studies scholar. He worked with Arnold Wesker and Joan Littlewood and wrote influential book such as Theatre Games. He worked at Warwick from 1976 until he retired in 1993.

This award is designed to provide practical and financial support for Theatre and Performance Studies students who plan to create a piece of extra-curricular performance work in the department with a view to submitting this work to the Edinburgh Festival or a similar public platform. The recipients of this award will receive up to £600 to help mount the work and will be given access to rehearsal space and technical support (subject to availability and a maximum amount of 15 hours of technical support) to realise the project. It is anticipated that projects will be developed over the Easter break, post-summer exams and/or in the early stages of the summer break.

How to Apply

Download and complete the short application from and return to Bobby - Bobby.Smith@warwick.ac.uk

Please add ‘Clive Barker Award Submission’ in the subject line of the email.

Deadline Friday 26th March 2021.

Successful Applicants will be announced within 3 weeks.
You can find the form here https://moodle.warwick.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=25249

PhD candidate Sky Herington wins the prestigious TaPRA Postgraduate Essay Prize

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 12:47:00 GMT

In December 2020, it was announced that Sky Herington has won the Theatre and Performance Research Association's prestigious Postgraduate Essay Prize. Sky's essay is called 'Grotesque Bodies & Subversive Healing: The Politics of the Belly in Two Plays by Sony Labou Tansi'.

Unsettled shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award

Sun, 01 Nov 2020 12:07:27 GMT

We are thrilled to announce that JC Niala's play Unsettled has been shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award for Black British playwrights. The play is published in Contemporary Plays by African Women and JC is a core member of the African Women Playwrights Network. Find out more about the award here: https://www.alfredfagonaward.co.uk/awards/2020-award/