The present volume marks 25 years of Contemporary Theatre Review, and the twelfth anniversary of its re-launch as a peer-reviewed journal in 2003 under the co-editorship of David Bradby and Maria M. Delgado. This year also marks a further new editorial phase for the journal, as co-editor Aoife Monks takes up a new position at the journal, as Consultant Editor, and Maggie B. Gale joins Maria M. Delgado and Dominic Johnson as Contemporary Theatre Review’s general editors. Jenny Hughes and Theron Schmidt begin their second year as Assistant Editors and Bryce Lease takes over as Reviews Editor from Lara Shalson. Caridad Svich remains the journal’s Associate Editor. Two editorial assistants, Sarah Bartley and Sarah Thomasson, will work with us on the day to day running of the journal.
With a new team come further changes. The revised editorial mandate of Contemporary Theatre Review confirms the journal as home to the most rigorous, experimental, and influential scholarly interventions into the study of international theatre and related practices. Publishing the best research on a broad spectrum of performance practices – including mainstream theatre, drama, performance histories; live art and performance art; dance theatre; digital performance; sound; and performative social and applied practices – Contemporary Theatre Review will continue to support and encourage a wide range of methodologies and approaches, especially interdisciplinary inflections. Each issue will continue to include scholarly articles, critical documents (including interviews and forum discussions), book reviews, and Backpages, with an emphasis throughout on the analysis of new, under-represented or otherwise marginalised examples of performance, grounded in their historical, social, cultural, and political conditions of production.
Over the last 12 months, we have also launched Contemporary Theatre Review’s companion website at www.contemporarytheatrereview.org, which publishes online ‘Interventions’, original articles that respond to current developments in the field and extend discussions from the print journal through a variety of writing formats and multimedia content. Edited by Theron Schmidt and his editorial team (Johanna Linsley, Adam Alston, and Elyssa Livergant) it continues to be an exciting and innovative contribution to the intellectual life of Contemporary Theatre Review, and we encourage readers to consult its recent articles, and to consider contributing new content.
It is fitting that the developments in the editorship of Contemporary Theatre Review, and the significance of this year in the life of the journal, are marked with a special issue on the practices and politics of editing. Editing is a relatively silent or hidden set of procedures and technologies in academic practice in the arts and humanities. The present special issue, guest-edited by Maria M. Delgado and Joanne Tompkins (current co-editor of Theatre Journal) brings together 33 short essays offering critical reflections and commentaries on the myriad practices, problems and provocations of editing. It is a conversation about how – as editors in formal and informal capacities – we write, how we curate, how we fashion and formulate, how we shape and feedback, and the changes and challenges that the digital era has introduced.
Our celebration of the quarter-centennial of the journal, and its new editorship, are marked by the introduction of a new cover design, which complements the design of our companion website. We look forward to special issues on Electoral Theatres, Performance and Activism, Amateur Performance, and Samuel Beckett and contemporary theatre; to Forums on Simon Stephens and David Greig; to conversations and debates, provocations and mandates, queries and interviews, and scholarship that asks its readers to engage creatively and intellectually with the key issues in our disciplines.