In Praise of Performance Reviews

Abstract

Abstract:

For decades, Theatre Journal has served as an important venue for documenting what made past theatrical productions or performances compelling and significant. As the journal commemorates its achievements over its first seventy-five volumes, this essay reflects on the vital contributions of the performance review section by considering its enduring impact on the field. In addition to tracing the evolution of the section from its earliest days as a single-authored article highlighting productions from the Broadway season to its current iteration, the essay argues that performance reviews have afforded authors crucial opportunities to hone their critical voices and vocabularies. It further contends that, even as performance reviews have been instrumental in introducing the journal’s readers to artists and events that they might not have otherwise known about, the influence of the section has also manifested in more practical ways. For example, it has been key in cultivating a pipeline of editors, thereby shaping how we think, read, and write about drama, theatre, and performance critically. Central to the essay is a consideration of the meaningful ways that the performance review section has advanced and enhanced the journal’s rich legacy of accomplishments.