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| Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism | |
|---|---|
| Title | Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism |
| Discipline | Dramatic studies, Theatre history |
| Language | English |
| Abbreviation | J. Dram. Theory Crit. |
| Publisher | University press |
| Country | United States |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| History | 1980–present |
Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism is a scholarly periodical focusing on analysis, interpretation, and theoretical reflection within theatrical practice and dramatic literature. The journal publishes peer-reviewed essays, reviews, and critical notes that engage with performance history, dramaturgy, and dramatic theory through archival research and contemporary criticism. Contributors often bridge historical figures, institutional archives, and performance repertoires to situate plays and productions in broader cultural and intellectual contexts.
The journal emerged amid renewed academic interest in modernist and postmodernist theatre during the late twentieth century, paralleling institutional shifts at Yale University, Columbia University, University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, and University of Chicago. Early editorial networks connected scholars working on figures such as Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, and August Strindberg, while archival projects at British Library, Library of Congress, Vatican Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture supported primary-source articles. The journal’s establishment coincided with theatrical festivals and institutions including Stratford Festival, Royal Shakespeare Company, New York Shakespeare Festival, Lincoln Center, and Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which provided case studies for comparative criticism. Over successive editorial boards drawn from Princeton University, Northwestern University, University of Michigan, Brown University, and Ohio State University, the journal expanded its remit to global repertoires and performance studies dialogues.
The journal covers dramaturgical analysis of canonical playwrights such as William Shakespeare, Euripides, Sophocles, Molière, Jean Racine, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, and Sarah Kane, alongside scholarship on directors and practitioners including Konstantin Stanislavski, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Peter Brook, Jerzy Grotowski, and Richard Schechner. It publishes archival studies drawing on materials from repositories like Theatricalia, V&A Theatre and Performance Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Huntington Library, and Folger Shakespeare Library. Thematic issues have examined periods and movements linked to Elizabethan era, Restoration comedy, German Expressionism, Russian Silver Age, Harlem Renaissance, and Postcolonial literature, engaging with authors such as John Webster, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Kean, Wole Soyinka, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and Harold Pinter. Methodologies span close reading of plays, performance analysis of productions at venues like Globe Theatre, Arena Stage, and Guthrie Theater, and theoretical dialogues invoking scholarship from Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Judith Butler, Pierre Bourdieu, and Walter Benjamin.
Published on a quarterly timetable by an academic press affiliated with a university department, the journal follows double-blind peer review procedures modeled on standards at Modern Language Association, American Comparative Literature Association, and Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Editorial boards have included faculty from University of Texas at Austin, Duke University, University of Toronto, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale School of Drama, with guest editors curating thematic issues on subjects such as Feminist theory, Deconstruction, Marxist criticism, New Historicism, and Performance Studies derived from conferences at MLA Convention, ATHE Conference, and Society for Theatre Research symposiums. Submission guidelines require abstracts, keywords, and documentation of archival sources held at institutions like National Archives (United Kingdom), National Archives and Records Administration, and regional collections such as Schlossmuseum and state historical societies. Digital initiatives have introduced online supplements and special multimedia dossiers referencing productions at Broadway, West End, Arena Stage, and experimental venues such as La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.
The journal has published influential essays by scholars associated with Stanford University, Columbia University, Princeton University, University of California, Los Angeles, and King’s College London examining playwrights and productions involving Ibsen's A Doll's House, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Brecht’s Mother Courage, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, and Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Articles have engaged archival discoveries related to figures like Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Geoffrey Chaucer, Marina Abramović, Pina Bausch, and Annie Baker. Special issues have foregrounded discourses on race and performance featuring studies of August Wilson, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Anna Deavere Smith; on gender and performance engaging Caryl Churchill, Eve Ensler, Tennessee Williams, Sarah Bernhardt, and Harriet Beecher Stowe adaptations; and on adaptation and intertextuality considering Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce.
Scholars cite the journal in bibliographies and syllabi at institutions such as Yale University, Oxford University, Cambridge University, University of Melbourne, and National University of Singapore for contributions to debates on textual editing, scenography, and performance historiography. Its articles have influenced curatorial practices at Victoria and Albert Museum, programming at Royal Court Theatre, and archival digitization efforts at Digital Public Library of America and Europeana. Reviews in periodicals like Times Literary Supplement, New York Review of Books, and The Guardian have noted the journal’s role in bridging archival scholarship and contemporary production criticism, while citations in monographs published by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, and Palgrave Macmillan indicate its standing in the field.
The journal is indexed in major bibliographic services and databases including JSTOR, Project MUSE, EBSCOhost, ProQuest, and Scopus, and appears in library catalogs such as WorldCat and institutional repositories at Harvard Library, Bodleian Library, National Library of Australia, and Bibliothèque nationale de France. Back issues are accessible through academic subscriptions, university library holdings, and digital archives correlated with initiatives at HathiTrust, Internet Archive, and select university presses.
Category:Theatre journals