Ann Saddlemyer Award/ Le prix Ann Saddlemyer
Named in honour of the Association’s co-founder, the Ann Saddlemyer Award goes to the best book published in English or French in a given year. The winning book should normally constitute a substantial contribution to the field of drama, theatre, and performance studies in what is now known as Canada.
Nommé en l’honneur d’une des cofondatrices de l’Association, le prix Ann Saddlemyer récompense le meilleur livre publié en anglais ou en français, au cours d’une année. Le livre gagnant doit normalement constituer une contribution importante aux études sur l’art dramatique, le théâtre et la performance, dans ce qu’on connaît actuellement comme le Canada.
2023 Committee: Barry Freeman (chair), Karen Fricker, Jess Riley
2022 Winner:
Karen Fricker, Robert Lepage’s Original Stage Productions: Making Theatre Global. Manchester: MUP, 2020.
Robert Lepage’s Original Stage Productions: Making Theatre Global, offers a thoroughly researched account and analysis of the directorial work of one of Quebec’s, Canada’s, and the world's most celebrated theatre creators over the period from 1984 to 2008, considering Lepage’s process, production, and reception as well as critical reactions to his work. Drawing on globalization, audience response, queer, and affect theories, cinema studies, and personal experience, the book traces the trajectory of Lepage’s career over its first quarter-century, taking into account his own individual biography as a queer Quebecker suffering from alopecia as well as the local and global cultural, political, economic, and theatrical contexts from which his work emerged and to which it has contributed. The book does not shy away from controversy—including controversies over Lepage’s orientalist, culturally appropriative bent—but neither does it become bogged down in them. Rather, it locates these controversies within a compelling account of the work of one major artist within a globalized, neoliberal theatrical economy in which funding, branding, and complex international transactions play a central role.
Honourable Mention
Peter Dickinson, My Vancouver Dance History: Story, Movement, Community. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020.
This book is an intriguing, up-close-and-personal account of the author’s own experience as critic, enthusiast, and participant in the dance history of the city of Vancouver over the decade between 2008 and 2018. My Vancouver Dance History draws on interviews, fieldwork, autoethnography, performance analysis, and “movement intervals,” to present a rich, multifaceted and generously illustrated account of the work of nine Vancouver-based dance artists and companies who together and with others constitute a tight and interconnected community of artists and audiences in the city.
LAURÉAT
Karen Fricker, Robert Lepage’s Original Stage Productions: Making Theatre Global. Manchester : MUP, 2020.
Robert Lepage’s Original Stage Productions : Making Theatre Global offre un compte rendu et une analyse très documentés du travail de direction d’un des créateurs théâtraux les plus reconnus au Québec, au Canada et dans le monde, pendant la période allant de 1984 à 2008. Il aborde à la fois les procédés, la production et la réception critique de son œuvre. Basé sur les théories queers, de la globalisation, de la réponse de l’auditoire et de l’affect, ainsi que sur les études cinématographiques et sur l’expérience personnelle de l’auteur, le livre retrace la trajectoire de la carrière de Lepage pendant les premières vingt-cinq années, prenant en considération sa vie de Québécois queer souffrant d’alopécie, ainsi que les contextes local et global, culturel, politique, économique et théâtral desquels son travail a émergé et auxquels il a contribué. Le livre ne craint pas la controverse — incluant les controverses concernant la disposition orientaliste et d’appropriation culturelle de Lepage — mais il ne s’y enlise pas non plus. Il situe plutôt ces controverses dans une captivante description du travail de l’un des grands artistes, dans une économie théâtrale néolibérale et mondialisée dans laquelle le financement, l’image de marque et les transactions internationales complexes jouent un rôle central.
Mention spéciale
Peter Dickinson, My Vancouver Dance History: Story, Movement, Community. Montréal et Kingston : McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020.
Ce livre est un récit fascinant et personnel des expériences de l’auteur comme critique, amateur et participant dans l’histoire de la danse dans la ville de Vancouver pendant la décennie 2008-2018. My Vancouver Dance History se base sur des entretiens, du travail de terrain, de l’autoethnologie, des analyses de spectacles et des « temps de mouvements » pour présenter une description riche, diversifiée et abondamment illustrée du travail de neuf artistes et compagnies de danse qui constituent, ensemble et avec d’autres, une communauté d’artistes et d’auditoires soudée et interconnectée dans la ville.
2022 Committee:
Ric Knowles (Chair) E: rknowles@uoguelph.ca
Kristin Moriah E: kristin.moriah@queensu.ca
Paul Halferty E: paul.halferty@ucd.ie
Past Winners
2021 - Dylan Robinson, Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Sound Studies. University of Manitoba Press, 2020.
2020 (jointly awarded) - Julie Burrelle, Encounters on Contested Lands: Indigenous Performances of Sovereignty and Nationhood in Québec. Northwestern University Press, 2019.
AND
Helene Vosters, Unbecoming Nationalism: From Commemoration to Redress in Canada. University of Manitoba Press, 2019.
2018 - Ric Knowles, Performing the Intercultural City (U of Michigan Press, 2017).
2018 (Honourable Mention) - Barry Freeman, Staging Strangers: Theatre and Global Ethics (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2017).
2015 - Laura Levin, Performing Ground: Space, Camouflage, and the Art of Blending In. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
2014 - R. Darren Gobert, The Mind-Body Stage: Passion and Interaction in the Cartesian Theater. Stanford UP, 2013.
2014 (Honourable Mention) - Virginie Magnat, Growtowski, Women and Contemporary Performance: Meetings with Remarkable Women. New York: Routledge, 2014.
2013 - Heather Davis-Fisch, Loss and Cultural Remains in Performance: The Ghosts of the Franklin Expedition. New York: Palgrave 2012.
2013 - Jenn Stephenson, Performing Autobiography: Contemporary Canadian Drama. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.
2013 (Honourable Mention) - Kirsty Johnston, Stage Turns: Canadian Disability Theatre. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2012.
2012 - Alan Filewod, Committing Theatre: Theatre Radicalism and Political Intervention in Canada. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2011.
2011 - Erin Hurley, National Performance: Representing Quebec from Expo 67 to Celine Dion. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
2011 - Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston, Staging Strife: Lessons from Performing Ethnography with Polish Roma Women. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009.
2010 - Candida Rifkind, Comrades and Critics: Women, Literature & The Left in 1930s Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.
2009 - Sherrill Grace, Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2008.
2008 - Michael McKinnie, City Stages: Theatre and Urban Space in a Global City. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.
2007 - Louise Ladouceur, Making The Scene: La traduction du théâtre d’une langue officielle à l’autre au Canada. (Québec: Editions Nota bene, 2005)
2005 - Kym Bird, Redressing the Past: The Politics of Early English-Canadian Women’s Drama, 1880-1920. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005.
2005 (Honourable Mention) - Ric Knowles Reading the Material Theatre Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004.
2003 - Alan Filewod, Performing Canada: The Nation Enacted in the Imagined Theatre. Textual Studies in Canada Monograph Series: Critical Performance/s in Canada, 2002.
2003 (Honourable Mention) - Diana Brydon & Irena R. Makaryk eds. Shakespeare in Canada: A World Elsewhere? Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002.
2001 - Ric Knowles, The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning: Canadian Dramaturgies. Toronto: ECW Press, 1999.
1999 - Leonard E. Doucette, The Drama of Our Past: Major Plays from Nineteenth-Century Quebec. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
1997 - Paula Sperdakos, Dora Mavor Moore: A Pioneer of Canadian Theatre. Toronto: ECW Press, 1995.
1995 - Gilbert David et Pierre Lavoie, eds. Le Monde de Michel Tremblay: Des Belles-soeurs à Marcel poursuivi par les chiens. Montréal: Lansman, 1993.
1994 - Rémi Tourangeau, Fêtes et spectacles du Québec: Région du Saguenay-Lac- Saint-Jean. Québec: Nuit Blanche, 1993;
1993 - Diane Bessai, The Canadian Dramatist volume 2: Playwrights of Collective Creation. Toronto: Simon & Pierre, 1992.
1992 - Denis Johnston, Up the Mainstream. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.
1991 - Anni Brisset, Sociocritique de la traduction: Théâtre et altérité au Québec (1968- 1988). Longueuil: Préambule, 1990.
1990 - Chantal Hébert, Le burlesque québécois et américain. Textes inédits. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 1989.
1989 - Bronwyn Drainie, Living the Part: John Drainie and the Dilemma of Canadian Stardom. Toronto: Macmillan, 1988
1989 - Jean-Luc Bastien & Pierre MacDuff, eds. La Nouvelle Compagnie théâtrale. En scène depuis 25 ans. Montréal: VLB, 1988.