Submission Guidelines for Articles and Online Material
Theatre Journal is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal featuring historiographical, cultural, and/or theoretical analyses of theatre, dance, and performance in both national and transnational contexts. The journal publishes two general issues and two special issues per year. Please refer to the “Call for Papers” section of our website for upcoming special issue themes and deadlines. Submissions for the general issues are always welcome. We strongly encourage prospective authors to become familiar with our journal before submitting; a free issue is available at https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/196. We also encourage prospective authors to review the FAQs for additional information regarding journal policies.
This page concerns full-length articles as well as submissions to the online platform; click here for information on book and performance reviews.
Peer Reviewed Article Guidelines
To submit a full-length article for consideration in Theatre Journal’s print edition, authors should submit through ScholarOne:
https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/theatrejournal.
Please upload your materials in MS Word according to the following guidelines:
- Articles should not exceed 9,000 words in length (including endnotes).
- Upload a bio of approximately 100 words.
- Manuscripts should be in US English, spelling, and punctuation.
- The article title only should appear at the head of the article file. The author’s name and/or institutional affiliation should not appear in the article file itself. If necessary, redact all information from the text and endnotes that identifies the author.
- Specific formatting guidelines for endnotes are provided below, which are based on The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition. We follow the Notes/Bibliography format. Please use endnotes. (Even though the articles are published with footnotes, endnotes are preferable for the review process.). Should your essay advance to publication, we might request a bibliography to assist with citation checking but you do not need to include one in your initial submission.
- Illustrations are strongly encouraged, but it is the author’s responsibility to secure the images and the permissions to use them and, if relevant, to cover copyright fees. We can publish roughly five images per essay. We urge authors to include only high quality images (minimum 300 dpi) that contribute to the essay’s argument. Authors may embed their images in the essay for the purposes of the review process; however, these images must be stripped out and uploaded separately if the essay is accepted for publication. Uploaded images must have a minimum of 300 dpi. Captions (which should be uploaded in a separate word document) must include the photographer or photo credit, as well as a brief description or comment that connects the image to the article.
- Submissions that fall short of or exceed the stated word limit and/or do not adhere to the journal’s style and format will not be considered for review.
- Simultaneous submissions are not accepted. No new submissions will be considered from an author within one year of their previous submission having been rejected by the editors. Resubmissions will not be considered unless an author has been expressly requested by the editors to revise and resubmit.
- Submissions must be the original scholarship and the sole work of the author(s); work created with the use of generative AI is not acceptable.
Online Materials Guidelines
The online platform publishes non-peer-reviewed material that supplements and extends the print journal, such as short articles, interviews and interventions (usually between 1000 and 3000 words). It also provides a space for multi-media material that can’t be contained between the print covers (charts, extra illustrations, video clips, podcasts, etc). Please note that we can embed videos and images only if the author can clear all copyright permissions through direct contact with copyright holders. Online articles will not be sent through the double-blind peer-review process but will be evaluated by the editorial staff. Please submit online materials using the Chicago notes format (see below for examples). If you would like to discuss an idea for an online submission, please contact the Online Editor, Tarryn Chun (tchun@nd.edu).
Formatting of Submissions (articles and online contributions) :
- Format left-aligned, Times New Roman, font size 12.
- Double spaced throughout (including block quotes). No extra space between paragraphs.
- Number all pages consecutively.
- Quotations of forty words or more should be indented without quotation marks as a block quote.
- Type one space only after periods, questions marks, or other terminal punctuation marks.
Endnote Formatting:
- Per the 18th edition of CMS:
- Places of publication should not be included.
- “Ibid.” should not be used; instead, when referencing a previously cited work, use a shortened version of the citation.
- Access dates of websites should not be included, unless no date of publication or last revision for the source may be located.
- Endnotes should be consolidated at the end of the sentence (that is, no more than one endnote per sentence).
- DOIs of articles should be included.
Books:
Daphne A. Brooks, Liner Notes for a Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound (Harvard University Press, 2021), 7.
Book Chapter:
Henry Bial and Scott Magelssen, introduction to Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions, ed. Henry Bial and Scott Magelssen (University of Michigan Press, 2010), 2.
Dwight Conquergood, “Rethinking Ethnography: Towards a Critical Cultural Politics,” in The Sage Handbook of Performance Studies, ed. D. Soyini Madison and Judith Hamera (Sage Publications, 2006), 351–65.
Journal Article
Kwasi Ampene, “Power and Responsibility: Royalty and the Performing Arts in Asante-Ghana,” African Studies Review 64, no. 3 (2021): 523–46, https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2021.13.
Journal Article (when citing and/or quoting specific page):
Kristin Moriah, “On the Record: Sissieretta Jones and Black Feminist Recording Praxes,” in “Sound Acts, Part 1,” ed. Patricia Herrera, Caitlin Marshall, and Marci R. McMahon, special issue, Performance Matters 6, no. 2 (2020), 31, https://doi.org/10.7202/1075797ar.
Jade Power-Sotomayor, “Un Llanto Colectivo: A PerformaProtesta,” Theatre Journal 75, no. 2 (2023): 130, https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2023.a908731.
Newspaper Article:
Maya Phillips, “Fat Ham Review: Dismantling Shakespeare to Liberate a Gay Black Hamlet,” New York Times, May 26, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/theater/fat-ham-review.html.
Website:
“Panel Conversation about Theatremaker Reza Abdoh,” Howlround Theatre Commons, February 25, 2016, https://howlround.com/happenings/panel-conversation-about-theatremaker-reza-abdoh.
Unpublished Dissertation:
Miguel Escobar, “Wayang Kontemporer: Innovations in Javanese Wayang Kulit” (PhD diss., National University of Singapore, 2015).
Subsequent endnotes:
If the same source is quoted again, use a shortened version of the source, such as: Power-Sotomayor, "Un Llanto Colectivo," 132.
For Performance Reviews and Book Review Guidelines, click here.