Albert Williams wins George Jean Nathan Award.

Albert Williams, drama critic for the Chicago Reader, has won this year’s George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism.

Administered by Cornell University on behalf of the Nathan estate, the $10,000 award is “paid to the American who has written the best piece of drama criticism during the theatrical year.”

In its award citation, the judging committee states: “Williams writes the kind of criticism for which the George Jean Nathan Prize was designed — incisive, thorough, confident in the intelligence of its readers and convinced that the theatre makes a difference to the city in which it occurs.”

Williams has been writing for the Chicago Reader since 1985. Williams also is an artist-in-residence at the theater department of Columbia College in Chicago.

Previous winners include Robert Brustein, Jan Kott, Stanley Kauffmann, John Simon, Elizabeth Hardwick, Eric Bentley, Walter Kerr, John Lahr, Harold Clurman, Mel Gussow and Jack Kroll.