Drawing of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

Styan Prize

Since 2003 the Drama Major has awarded a prize for critical writing on performance named after J. L. Styan (1923-2002), late Professor Emeritus of English and Theatre at Northwestern. A prolific scholar of drama and theatre, J.L. Styan wrote broadly on plays and performance practices from Shakespeare to Chekhov, Brecht, and the postwar avant-garde. What distinguished Styan's scholarship was his insistence on the inextricability of dramatic literature from its theatrical contexts, a belief that also informs the Weinberg Drama Major. The J.L. Styan Prize for Critical Writing on Performance recognizes undergraduate writing that attends to the complex interplay between text, performance, and context.

The prize carries a generous monetary award and is open to undergraduates across the university. Critical essays no longer than 20 double-spaced pages are eligible for the award. Essays may address diverse genres of theatrical performance, not limited to dramatic literature, but also including vaudeville, cabaret, music theatre, dance theatre, and so on. Senior honors theses are not eligible for the competition. Deadline for the annual award falls in early May and award winners are announced by the end of May.

Past Prize Winners:

Sherri Berger, “History Embodied: Jazz, Performance, and Remembering the Past in Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus” (2003)

Dan Hoyle, “Laughing Out the Old Ways: Post-World War II British Satirical Comedy” (2003)

Cabiria Jacobsen, “Instant Classics! The Red Letter Plays of Suzan-Lori Parks” (2006)