The Johns Hopkins University Press

Journals

The primary aim of Theatre Journal is to provide an outlet for scholarship and criticism in the theatre arts. We welcome articles of varying subject matter and approach.

A double-spaced MS Word article file, 6,000 to 9,000 words in length (including endnotes), should be submitted as an e-mail attachment. A separate file should contain a cover letter with author's name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, and professional affiliation. (The article title only should appear at the head of the article file. The author's name and/or institution should not appear in the article file itself.) Illustrations, when available, are encouraged. Article submissions should use endnotes. For other stylistic matters, follow Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. Submissions that fall short of or exceed the stated word limit and/or do not follow journal style and format will not be read. 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 invited by the editors to revise and resubmit.

Submissions should be e-mailed to the Managing Editor, Bob Kowkabany, at doriclay@aol.com (Box 302, 5505 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20015).

Inquiries concerning performance reviews should be addressed to the Performance Review Editor: Sarah Bay-Cheng, Performance Review Editor, Theatre Journal, Department of Theatre & Dance, 285 Alumni Arena, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-5030; e-mail: baycheng@buffalo.edu.

Inquiries concerning book reviews should be addressed to the Book Review Editor: Julia A. Walker, Book Review Editor, Theatre Journal, Performing Arts Department, CB 1108, Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130; e-mail: tjbooks@artsci.wustl.edu.

Guidelines for Review

Theatre Journal: For Performance Review Authors

(Submission considerations for 2010–12)

Reminder to Reviewers

Please be certain that you are familiar with Theatre Journal and its performance review section before you submit your materials. Published reviews are reliable models for the type and range of reviews in which we are interested. They are also documented according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. Please consult this source on your own and submit materials that conform to its requirements.

Checklist for a complete submission package (all components of the package MUST be submitted together)

One version of your review as a Word e-mail attachment. Included on this electronic record should be a file listing the author's address and that of the theatre company(s) or performer reviewed (for the mailing of complimentary copies of the journal). Microsoft Word is the review editor's preferred program.
At least one production image (PHOTOGRAPH, JPEG) must accompany your review. Production images for your review must be properly captioned, and a return address for the images included, if needed. The caption and credit should be assembled together on a separate sheet of paper or file.
All necessary permissions for images. These can be in the form of an e-mail from the company, or documentation that you have procured the images from an official website.
An attachment listing the author's (your) address, phone number, and e-mail and that of the theatre company(s) or performer reviewed (for the mailing of complimentary copies of the journal).
Completed JHUP Author Publishing Agreement. All questions must be answered.

Guidelines

Inquiries and Commissions: Inquiries to the Performance Review Editor in advance of submission are required to avoid duplication of reviews already published or in process. If needed, the Performance Review Editor can provide a letter to help the reviewer obtain tickets or production photos. It is best to contact the press agents for a production in order to try to obtain a "reviewer" comp.; also, make sure to ask for a press kit. Please note that the Journal does not accept reviews of student or university productions.

Style and Content: ALL submissions are expected to conform to the format, style, word limitation (i.e., length of review) and spelling requirements when they are submitted. This is the reviewer's responsibility. Theatre Journal performance reviews should be written in clear, effective prose. NO citations (example: footnotes, bibliography) are to be included in the review. Reviews should emphasize analysis of the production with a minimum of plot summary (no plot summary is necessary for often produced, well-known plays). The review might address the significance of production vis-à-vis its historical moment, performers, director, design, author, style, or its constituent audience. A review might consider a play's production values or emphasize the importance of a performance event with regard to its cultural, political, or historical context. Once again: Please consult previous issues of Theatre Journal for sample reviews. It is expected that the author will be familiar with both the journal and its readership when submitting a review.

Length: We generally publish reviews of individual productions, which should run 800–1,000 words in length. Combined reviews of more than one production also can be submitted. Such multiple production reviews should run 1,600–2,000 words in length. Reviews covering two or more productions may be edited to achieve overall copy balance. A word count should be provided at the top of the first page of the copy. Reviews exceeding these word counts will generally be returned to the author for revision. This can delay the publication of the review.

Revisions: Often there is insufficient time for authors to revise their own work. We reserve the right to make final editorial decisions.

Final Acceptance and Duplicate Submissions: There is no guarantee, even in the case of a commissioned review, that the piece will be accepted for publication. In addition, please understand that Theatre Journal can provide only provisional acceptance until just before your review is actually published. In particular, it very infrequently happens that reviews accepted by the Review Editor are later struck by the journal's Editor because of space limitations.

NB: publishing ethics require us to insist that you not submit your review to any other publication until it has been rejected by Theatre Journal.

Publication Timetable: The Performance Review Editor cannot always specify the issue of Theatre Journal in which the review will appear. Every effort will be made to insure that an accepted review is published as soon as possible. In general, one year is the maximum interval allowed between the date of viewing a production and the review's appearance in print. Consult the deadlines below to be sure your review will be eligible for the next available issue. The Performance Review Editor will confirm by e-mail the issue in which your review will appear once the section has been approved by the journal's editors (which is usually within three months following a specific deadline for submissions to reach the Performance Review Editor).

Deadlines: for the March issue, August 1; for the May issue, November 1; for the October issue, April 1; for the December issue, June 1. Note that Theatre Journal has a policy of publishing only one review per author in a twelve-month period.

Proofing and Author Agreement Form: Reviewers will not receive either page proofs or first pages to correct. Authors will receive an offprint order form from JHUP before final publication.

NB: The attached Author Agreement Form MUST accompany your submission to the Performance Review Editor, and should not be sent to JHUP. In case your review is not accepted for publication, the signed form will be returned to the author.

Format

Review headings: Type heading double-spaced. Type the play title in BOLDFACE CAPS, followed by the author's name, and the name of the director. Next, type the production company's name, name of the theatre, city, state or country (if necessary--not needed for major cities), and the date the production was seen (date, month, year).

NB: All information in the heading is run-on; do not start a fresh line with either production company or date; however, if information runs onto a second line, indent that line five spaces, as shown. Please observe punctuation, capitalization, and placement of entries exactly as follows:

UNCLE VANYA. By Anton Chekhov. Directed by Janis Benny. Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Angus Bowmer Theatre, Ashland. 12 August 1998.

Review signatures: Type your name in BOLDFACE CAPS at the end of the review, with your institution, position, or place of residence italicized below. Set these two lines against the right-hand margin, thus:

MARY ELIZABETH GALVIN
Johns Hopkins University

Stylistic matters: Italicize play titles throughout the text. Refer to yourself in the first person, not as "the reviewer" or "this writer." Avoid quotation marks and italics except where absolutely necessary. Remain as consistent in tense as good sense permits, remembering that the production may be closed by the time your review appears. Proofread your draft carefully, paying special attention to correct spelling of proper names and titles. Submit a clean original and a duplicate copy.
Production images are required: Among acceptable images are sharp, high-contrast, black and white or color production shots (rather than head shots or close-ups or promotional shots). The journal only accepts .jpeg and .tiff images (with resolutions of 300 dpi).
Image captions: On a separate page, authors should prepare a caption for each image submitted to accompany a review. The preferred formats for image captions follow. Note that in a large group scene, actors do not need to be individually named.

Informative description related to review.
Actor x (character) and Actor y (character) [and any additional actors up to 4 or 5] in Show Title. Photo: Name of photographer. OR
Actor x (character) and Actor y (character) [and any additional actors up to 4 or 5] in Show Title. Photo: Name of photographer

Additional information about the production such as venue, director, or author is unnecessary since this will be available to readers in the review itself. Exceptions are made in the case of multiple productions of the same play in different venues or if the permission grantor specifies such language as a condition for using the image.

Permissions. We will always credit photographers, who retain copyrights of their individual images. If a venue granting permission asks to be acknowledged we will do so. Our preferred format for such acknowledgment is "courtesy of x."

Send performance reviews to:
Sarah Bay-Cheng
Performance Review Editor, Theatre Journal
Department of Theatre & Dance
285 Alumni Arena
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260-5030
e-mail: baycheng@buffalo.edu

Formatting of submissions:

Use 1-inch margins.
Indent new paragraphs and block quotations one tab space.
Type only one space after periods, questions marks, or other terminal punctuation marks.
Number all pages sequentially.
Double-space everything. Don't add an extra line between paragraphs.
Highlight in yellow all foreign accents, symbols, etc., on your Word file. This is particularly important, since accents and symbols are frequently lost during translation at the typesetters.
Concerning formatting Word files, please note the following requirements:

Use a typewriter-style font (we prefer Times Roman). Use 12-point font throughout the review. Don't use drop-caps or other ornamentation.
Use ragged right margins; don't use Word's justification or kerning features.
Don't use automatic hyphenation and don't manually hyphenate words at the ends of lines. Put hyphens in the text only where you intend them to be kept (e.g., ten-mile hike).
Use a regular hyphen for both hyphens and en dashes. To indicate an em dash, use two consecutive hyphens, no space. Do not use formatting features that create en or em dashes. Thus,"dash between here--and here"; not "dash between here—and here."
Use hard returns only at the ends of paragraphs, headings, list entries, etc.
You may use Boldface and Italics. Do not use any other styles. Use italics in place of underlining wherever possible; otherwise, use underlining to indicate italics.
Do not use 'typesetter's,' or 'smart' quotes: Thus, "quotation"; not 'quotation.' Do not use the accent character as a single quotation mark: Thus, 'quotation'; not 'quotation.'

Quotations:

Performance reviews should avoid quotation of any kind, with the possible exception of dialogue. If you do use quoted material (which should be minimally, if at all), you should document your quote in a parenthetical note after the first citation. For subsequent quotes, supply page numbers in parentheses at the end of the quotation. Position the reference: "here" (23). Or "here" (1.1.11). If the page reference follows an ellipsis, position the period after the in-line citation: Thus, "the end..." (23).

Treat dialogue quoted from one character like prose, but be sure to provide the character's name in your text prior to the quotation. Such a quotation need not be set off from the text unless it runs to more than five lines. On the other hand, dialogue involving two or more characters always should be extracted, no matter how long quotation runs.

Extracted quotations of dialogue from two or more characters should use hanging indents, with each name in small caps, then a colon, a single space, and then dialogue, running prose to the right-hand margin.

HAMLET: I start here.
ROSENCRANTZ (angrily): I start here, too. Anyone else who would be speaking would start from this same place as well. [1.1.1.]

Note that the in-line documentation for extracted quotation is positioned flush-right and is put into square brackets rather than parentheses.

For Book Review Authors

(Submission considerations for 2010–12)

Reminder to Reviewers: Please be certain that you are familiar with Theatre Journal and its book review section before you submit your materials. Published reviews are reliable models for the type and range of reviews in which we are interested. They are also documented according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. Please ensure that your submission conforms to the manual’s requirements.

Submissions: General

Send book reviews to:

Julia A. Walker, Book Review Editor
Performing Arts Department, CB 1108
Washington University in St. Louis
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130
e-mail: tjbooks@artsci.wustl.edu

Publishers: please direct review copies to the book review editor (contact information above); copies sent to JHUP will be discarded. Reviewers: please contact the book review editor to inquire about the availability of a book you would like to review for Theatre Journal (books received for review are listed in the March and October issues of the journal); unsolicited reviews are not accepted.

Publication timetable: The Book Review Editor cannot always specify the issue of Theatre Journal in which reviews will appear. Every effort will be made to ensure that an accepted review is published as soon as possible. Consult the deadlines below to be sure your review will be eligible for the next available issue. The Book Review Editor will confirm by e-mail the issue in which your review will appear once the section has been approved by the journal's editors (usually within three months following a specific deadline for submissions to reach the Book Review Editor).

Deadlines: For the March issue, August 1st; for the May issue, November 1st; for the October issue, April 1st; for the December issue, June 1st. (NB: Theatre Journal has a policy of publishing only one review per author in a twelve-month period.)

Length of book reviews: Limit your review to 1,000 words for a one-book review, 1,500 for a two-book review, or 2,000 for three-book review.

Revisions: Often there is insufficient time for authors to revise their own work, therefore Theatre Journal reserves the right to make final editorial decisions.

Proofing and ordering reprints: Authors will not receive page proofs (pages are proofread by the journal’s editors). Authors will receive an offprint order form from JHUP before final publication.

Submissions: Formatting

Reviews must provide the following heading: in the upper-right hand corner, the reviewer’s full name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address. On a separate line indicate the review’s total word-count.

Title, heading, and ending signature:

Left-justified and double-spaced, the title of the book review IN BOLDFACED CAPS [period] full name of author [period] series title (if applicable) [period] city of publication [colon] publisher [comma] date of publication [semicolon] total number of pages [period]. For example:

PINA BAUSCH. By Royd Climenhaga. Routledge Performance Practitioners. New York: Routledge, 2009; pp. xii + 146.

If applicable, use “Edited by” instead of “By”

Theatre Journal does not list multiple places of publication; use the city given first on the book’s title page; for example, a book published by Oxford University Press in New York should be:

New York: Oxford University Press (not Oxford and New York).

At the end of the review (and flush right), type your name in BOLDFACED CAPITAL LETTERS, and your academic affiliation (if applicable) in italics. If you do not have an academic affiliation, list your city and state of residence; for example,

JULIA A. WALKER
Washington University in St. Louis

Text:

Do not use footnotes; instead, supply page numbers of quoted material at the end of a quote. Position the reference like this: “. . . here” (23); or “. . . here” (1.1.11); or (if the quote appears in mid-sentence) “. . . here" (23), . . .
Do not use titles (Prof., Dr., Ms., Mr., and so on), and do not italicize the names of theatre companies or foreign theatres.
Use 1-inch margins.
Indent new paragraphs and block quotations one tab space.
Type only one space after periods, questions marks, or other terminal punctuation marks.
Number all pages sequentially.
Double-space everything. Do not add an extra line between paragraphs.
Highlight in yellow all foreign accents, symbols, etc., on your Word file. This is particularly important, since accents and symbols are frequently lost during translation at the typesetters.

Concerning formatting Word files, please note the following requirements:

Use a typewriter-style font (we prefer Times New Roman), 12-point type size, with no drop-caps or any other ornamentation.
Use ragged right margins; do not use Word's justification or kerning features.
Do not use automatic hyphenation, and do not manually hyphenate words at the ends of lines. Put hyphens in the text only where you intend them to be kept (e.g., ten-mile hike).
Use a regular hyphen for both hyphens and en-dashes. To indicate em-dashes, use two consecutive hyphens, with no spacing before or after. Do not use formatting features that create en- or em-dashes; i.e., "dash between here--and here"; not "dash between here—and here."
Use hard returns only at the ends of paragraphs, headings, list entries, and so on.
You may use italics and boldface type. Do not use any other styles. Please use italics instead of underlining.

Miscellaneous Style Rules and Oddities

The primary guides for Theatre Journal are The Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.) (for style), and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) (for spelling and punctuation)

Acronyms: All capitals, no periods: e.g., UN, US, WHO

Adjectives:

use hyphens in compound adjectives: e.g., self-reliant; twentieth-century; but: African American (both as adjective and noun)
adverbs ending in “ly” are not followed by hyphens.
most commonly used prefixes form closed compounds: e.g., antebellum; antihero; coauthor; coeditor; reexamine. Exceptions include homographs (re-create) and potentially difficult forms: anti-utopian; co-edition.

Adverbial transitions: always precede any of the following words with a semicolon and follow with a comma when the word is used transitionally between clauses of a compound sentence: then; however; thus; hence; indeed; accordingly; besides; and therefore

Ampersands: not used, unless in a referenced title

Commas: use serial commas: e.g., apples, oranges, and pears

Dates:

use day/month/year: e.g., 1 November 1954
spell out months in full
spell out centuries in full: e.g., twentieth, not 20th
“the 1993–94 season”; but “from 1993 to 1994”; or “between 1993 and 1994”; not “from 1993–95”

Ellipses:

do not start a quotation with an ellipsis
even if you omit the last part of one quoted sentence before beginning another, give the sentence period or other punctuation mark followed by three ellipsis points: e.g., “at the end. . . . [T]here was a new beginning”
if in quoted material you change from upper- to lowercase or vice versa, put the changed letter in square brackets: e.g., [t]herefore
ellipsis points are separated from each other and from preceding and following text by a full space
ellipses do not substitute for punctuation in the citation that precedes or follows: e.g., “one, two, . . . and the rest”; “Let me say . . .: I like it”

Italics:

use for: titles of books, periodicals, and plays; foreign words and phrases; [sic] (note that sic is not followed by a period)
do not use for: scholarly abbreviations: e.g., et al., i.e.; foreign-derived words or phrases entered without italics in the dictionary: e.g., cliché; mise en scène; vis-à-vis

Numbers and number ranges: in general, spell out numbers one to ninety-nine; use digits for 100 and above, but use Arabic numerals for verse plays (e.g., 1.1.111–12), otherwise use lowercase and Arabic numerals (e.g., act 3; scene 3; scene 3.3; page 3; chapter 3; part 3). Give page or line ranges as follows: e.g., 23–24; 123–24; 1123–24. Also, note the special form for numbers ending in “0”: 100–108, 101–8. Ages of people are given in Arabic numerals (e.g., age 24; 46 years old)

Possessives: use “’s” after proper names ending in “s” (e.g., Williams’s), except for Greek names ending with a “z” sound (e.g., Socrates’)

Punctuation: place commas and periods inside quotation marks and parentheses, colons and semicolons outside. Colons or semicolons that end quoted passages should be dropped

Spellings and usage:

always use theatre, except in proper nouns that use “Theater”
employ American spelling and usage: e.g., analyze; center; color; gray; labor; while (not whilst)
use “toward,” not “towards”
Theatre Journal uses the following particular spellings: acknowledgment; agit-prop; avant-garde; co-opt; debut, debuted; judgment; naive, naiveté; offstage, onstage; postmodern; premiere (as of a play); repartee; stageworthy

Theatre Journal

Theatre Journal is the official journal of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.

Volume: 63 (2011)
Frequency: Quarterly
Print ISSN: 0192-2882
Online ISSN: 1086-332X