The Drama Review

The Drama Review

The Drama Review is an academic journal focused on theatre and performance art studies, publishing critical essays, documentation, and experimental formats that engage practitioners and scholars. Founded in 1956, it became a central venue for work linking experimental theatre, dance, choreography, and visual culture with contemporary practice across New York City, London, Paris, and other international centers. The journal has intersected with movements and figures associated with avant-garde, postmodernism, and political theatre while circulating debates involving institutions such as Museum of Modern Art, Juilliard School, and Lincoln Center.

History

The magazine was established in 1956 amid postwar shifts in New York City arts scenes involving artists from Black Mountain College, New York University, and the burgeoning Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway networks. Early editors and contributors included figures tied to Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, John Cage, and links with European practices around Bertolt Brecht, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, and Antonin Artaud. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s it chronicled and helped shape dialogues around Fluxus, Happenings, performance art, and experimental choreography, intersecting with institutions such as Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Royal Court Theatre, and the American Academy in Rome. Editorial stewardship over decades connected the journal to debates around feminist performance with contributors tied to 1968 protests, Stonewall riots, and other pivotal cultural moments. In subsequent decades the journal expanded internationally, engaging scholars and practitioners associated with Brazilian Tropicalia, Japanese Butoh, South African Township Theatre, and transnational festivals like Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Venice Biennale.

Editorial Policy and Content

The editorial policy foregrounds hybrid forms of scholarship and practice that document, analyze, and perform; it regularly publishes archival materials, manifestos, photo-essays, and audiovisual documentation related to productions at venues including Brooklyn Academy of Music, Guthrie Theater, and Schlossfestspiele. Articles often address methodologies linked to figures such as Richard Schechner, Allan Kaprow, Pina Bausch, and Robert Wilson, and institutions such as Playwrights Horizons, Roundabout Theatre Company, Royal Shakespeare Company, and National Theatre (UK). The journal's content ranges from peer-reviewed essays to curated dossiers on topics like site-specific performance, puppetry traditions alongside research into archives from Shakespeare's Globe and repertories associated with Kabuki and Noh. Policy emphasizes interdisciplinary peer review involving scholars from Columbia University, Harvard University, Yale School of Drama, Stanford University, and international partners including Scuola Normale Superiore, Università di Bologna, and University of Cape Town.

Influence and Reception

The journal has influenced historiography and pedagogy across departments at New York University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, Goldsmiths, University of London, and University of Toronto. Its dossiers have shaped curatorial practices at MoMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Centre Georges Pompidou, and informed festival programming at Avignon Festival, Salzburg Festival, and Spoleto Festival USA. Critics and scholars in journals like TDR (journal)’s peer fields, Theatre Research International, Performance Research, and PMLA have debated pieces published here; the journal’s interventions have been cited in monographs on postdramatic theatre, ritual studies, and cultural policy changes tied to events like Cultural Olympiad initiatives and national arts funding shifts involving bodies such as the National Endowment for the Arts and Arts Council England. Its reception spans praise for archival rigor from curators at Victoria and Albert Museum and criticism from commentators aligned with new historicism and institutional critique.

Notable Contributors and Articles

Contributors have included practitioners and scholars linked to Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Heiner Müller, Caryl Churchill, Toni Morrison, Augusto Boal, Ariel Dorfman, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Roland Barthes, Guy Debord, Hélène Cixous, Giorgio Agamben, Walter Benjamin, Susan Sontag, bell hooks, Mikhail Bakhtin, Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Richard Schechner, Allan Kaprow, Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Robert Wilson, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht, Maria Irene Fornes, The Wooster Group, Reza Abdoh, Forced Entertainment, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, Judson Dance Theater, Fluxus, Yvonne Rainer, Suzanne Lacy, Marina Abramović, Chris Burden, Laurie Anderson, Tarek Atoui, Kodo, Suzuki Tadashi, Ehrlich Katz, and many others. Seminal articles and dossiers addressed topics from postcolonial theatre in India and Nigeria to case studies of productions at Schaubühne, Teatro alla Scala, Metropolitan Opera, and analyses of company archives like Ballets Russes and Diaghilev materials.

Publication Details and Access

Published quarterly and distributed through academic and museum channels, the journal is available in print and digital formats via university libraries at Library of Congress, British Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and consortia like JSTOR and aggregator platforms used by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press subscribers. Institutional subscriptions are held by departments at New York University, Royal Holloway, University of Melbourne, University of São Paulo, and cultural centers such as Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art. The journal organizes symposia and panels at venues including American Theater Wing, International Federation for Theatre Research, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and biennials in Istanbul, São Paulo, and Shanghai.

Category:Academic journals