Journal of Religion and Theatre

The Journal of Religion and Theatre (ISSN 1544-8762) is a peer-reviewed online academic journal covering research on the relationship between theatre and religion, including the spirituality of world cultures in all disciplines of the theatre, performance studies in sacred rituals of all cultures, themes of transcendence in text, on stage, in theatre history, and the analysis of dramatic literature. It is abstracted and indexed in the MLA International Bibliography.

Debra Bruch, Associate Professor of Theatre from Michigan Technological University, brought the idea of creating an online journal to the Religion and Theatre Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education in August 1999. Dr. Bruch created the journal site and editors in the profession of theatre were gained by August 2000. The first issue was published in 2001. The journal immediately met an international need for scholarship exploring the relationship between religion and theatre. Bruch was General Editor until 2006. Heather Beasley was Assistant Editor from 2004 to 2006 when she took over as General Editor until the Religion and Theatre Focus Group decided to discontinue the journal August 2010. Beasley introduced the Emerging Scholars program and added book and play reviews. The final issue was Fall of 2010. The journal served as a model for others and by 2011 other journals promoting scholarship between religion and theatre were in service for the field. For instance, Ecumenica began as the Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance with its first issue in 2003 and currently examines the relationship between religion/faith/spirituality and theatre/performance.

The journal's editors were committed to seeing the worth of different writing styles by scholars as well as different interpretations of the relationship between religion and theatre. For that reason, no attempt was made by the journal to define the relationship between religion and theatre. They were also committed to not only publish the work of scholars affiliated with the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, but opened the journal to all scholars in the field. All editors except the General Editor reviewed articles blind.

The first issue was housed in the Fine Arts Department at Michigan Technological University. In 2002 it moved to an outside server and was able to connect to a domain name. It then moved to the ATHE server when it was archived. Scholars will be able to access pdf files of all articles from the archive page.

Vol. 9, No. 1: Fall 2010

Articles:

Michael J. Lueger. Baroque and Classical in Jesuit Theatre. Wade Hollingshaus. Can the Mormon Church Come Out and Play? Negotiating Praxes and Spaces with Cornerstone Theater's Festival of Faith: 21 Theatrical Offerings. Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. The Devil is an Ass: Radical Evil Redefined as Ridiculous Evil from the English Renaissance to Contemporary Hollywood. Joshua Polster. Under the Crown: The Royal Protection of Jews in Restoration Politics and Drama.

Vol. 8, No. 1: Fall 2009

Articles:

Vanessa Baker. “Dancing With Eyes Half Closed”: Ritual Paradox in Dancing at Lughnasa. Donnalee Dox. The Willing Sustenance of Belief: Religiosity and Mode of Performance. Thomas Fish. Sister Aimee's Dutch Swan Song: A Study of the Illustrated Sermon. Robert J. Hubbard. Theatres of Shalom: Community-Based Drama as Kingdom Work. Matt Saltzberg. Sacred Theatre: An Exploration of Suzuki/Viewpoints and Composition in Directing John Pielmeier’s Agnes of God.

Book Review: Western Esotericism in Russian Silver Age Drama: Aleksandr Blok’s The Rose & The Cross. By Lance Gharavi. Reviewed by J. Lawton Winslade.

Play Reviews: The Hidden Sky, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Heaven's My Destination, Grace.

Vol. 7, No. 1: Fall 2008

Articles:

Nathan G. Tipton. "Thou Knowest My Foolishness": The Problems with Paul in Erasmus' Praise of Folly and Jim Grimley's The Lizard of Tarsus. Jennifer Williams. Acquire the Fire: Affect, Ideology, and Contagion in Evangelical Performance. Felicia Hughes-Freeland. Becoming a Puppet: Javanese Dance as Spiritual Art.

Emerging Scholars: Brooke Kiener. Investigating Authority and Defining Difference: Radical Hospitality in Community-Based Theatre Projects.

Book Review: Rabinal Achí: A Fifteenth-Century Maya Dynastic Drama. Edited by Alain Breton. Reviewed by Felicia Hardison Londré.

Vol. 6, No. 2: Fall 2007

Articles:

Claire M.C. Blackstock. Entertaining the Gods, Appeasing Ourselves: René Girard's Theories of Sacrifice and Reality TV's America's Next Top Model. Douglas FitzHenry Jones. "Darkness as a Bride:" Heloise, Isabella, and the Dialectic of Transcendence and Deception in Early-Modern Theatre. Allie Terry. Meraviglia on Stage: Dionysian Visual Rhetoric and Cross-Cultural Communication at the Council of Florence. Jay Twomey. Blasted Hope: Theology and Violence in Sarah Kane. Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. Intelligent Design (after Julie Taymor): Opposing Darwinism in The Crystal Cathedral's Creation: Once Upon All Time.

Emerging Scholars: Rachel Bowditch. Temple of Tears: Revitalizing and Inventing Ritual in the Burning Man Community in Black Rock Desert, Nevada.

Book Review: Postmodern Theater and the Void of Conceptions. By William S. Haney II. Reviewed by Edmund Lingan.

Vol. 6, No. 1: Summer 2007

Articles:

Norman J. Fedder. Dramatizing the Torah: Plays about Moses. Daniel Cawthon. Eugene O’Neill: Progenitor of a New Religious Drama. Michael Greenwald. Calderón’s Quest for God in La vida es sueño. Robert F. Gross. Broken Bodies: Scandal and the Quest for Salvation in Three Expressionist Dramas. Mark C. Pilkinton. The Effect of the Reformation on the Antagonists in English Drama. Peter Garvie. “The Fool of Conscience”: Comedy and the Moral Order in the Medieval Theatre.

Vol. 5, No. 2: Fall 2006

Articles:

Rob K. Baum. Circumspection: Signs of G-d in Jewish Bodies. Kevin Brown. Spectacle as Resistance: Performing Tree Ordination in Thailand. Charles Joseph Del Dotto. T. S. Eliot as Medieval Modernist: Period and Ideology in "Religious Drama: Mediaeval and Modern." Patrick J. Ebewo. Religion as an Ideological Weapon in Africa: A View From the Stage. Diana Manole. "What Language Shall We Pray In?" Post-Colonial Approaches to Sacred Texts and Rituals in Canadian Contemporary Drama.

Emerging Scholars: Charles Andrews. National Tragedy as Religion in Martin McDonagh’s Leenane Trilogy. Christopher Swift. The Sacred Performative: Holy Wednesday and Colonial Ritual/Theatre.

Book Reviews: Stages of Evil: Occultism in Western Theater and Drama. Robert Lima. Reviewed by Edmund Lingan.

Vol. 5, No. 1: Summer 2006

Articles:

Robert F. Gross. Figuring Guilt: Wolfgang Borchert's Outside the Door and Carl Zuckmayer's The Song in the Fiery Furnace. Judy Lee Oliva. Religion and Relevancy in David Hare's Racing Demon: Connecting the Prose with the Passion. Judith Davis. The Miracula Mariae and May Festivals of the Middle Ages. Cheryl Nafziger-Leis. The Influence of Zen on Medieval Noh Drama. Timothy D. Hoare. Pulling the Siamese Dragon: Performance as a Theological Agenda for Christian Ritual Praxis. Debra Bruch. The Australian Aborigines' Struggle Against Authority: An Historical Perspective on Government, Military, and a Corrupted Christianity in Jack Davis' No Sugar. Lee Krähenbühl. A Theatre Before the World: Performance History at the Intersection of Hebrew, Greek, and Roman Religious Processional.

Vol. 4, No. 2: Fall 2005

Articles:

Christopher J. Anderson. The Wayfarer: Early 20th Century Foreign Missions Pageantry. John S. Bak. Suddenly Last Supper: Religious Acts and Race Relations in Tennessee Williams's 'Desire'. Jeff Dailey. Christian Underscoring in Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. Donny Inbar. TAMING OF THE JEW: Marlowe's Barabas Vis-à-vis Shakespeare's Shylock. Jennifer Lavy. Theoretical Foundations of Grotowski's Total Act, Via Negativa, and Conjunctio Oppositorum. Sam Vasquez. The Deployment of Humor and Song in Asserting Black Diasporic Identity in Aimé Césaire's A Tempest.

Vol. 4, No. 1: Summer 2005

Articles:

Rev. Jana Childers. Making Connections : Preaching as Theatre. Lauren Friesen. Drama and Religion: The Search for a New Paradigm. Lee Krahenbuhl. "God in Three Personae, Blessed Trinity": Theatre Education to Subvert the Puritan Antitheatrical Prejudice. Rev. George A. Scranton. The Theatrical Process as Priestly Oblation: Teaching and Doing Theatre "Christianly". Dale Rott. Intersections Between Theatre and the Church in the United States: 1930-1990.

Vol. 3, No. 2: Fall 2004

Articles:

Heather A. Beasley. Blasphemy, Parody, and Running Commentary: Roman Catholicism and the Work of Karen Finley. Norman A. Bert. The Incarnational Actor: From Christian Theology into Theatrical Praxis. Ken D. Elston. Ritual and Inhabiting the Mask: An Actor's Search for the Transcendent Creative State. Yvonne Fein. From Sacred Scroll to Stage and Page. Mahmood Karimi-Hakak. Religion and the Actor: The Art of Mastering Double Standards Under The Theocratic Islamic Regime of Iran. Pamyla A. Stiehl. Bharata Natyam: A Dialogical Interrogation of Feminist Voices in Search of the Divine Dance. Philip Zwerling. The Political Agenda for Theatricalizing Religion in Shango de Ima and Sortilege II: Zumbi Returns.

Vol. 3. No. 1: Summer 2004

Articles:

Debra Bruch. The Prejudice Against Theatre. Mark C. Pilkinton. From Picture to Word to Picture in Tudor and Stuart England: Getting to the Word. James Forsythe. Spirituality and Actor Training. Michael Stauffer. Building Character while Developing a Character: An Investigation of the Integration of Faith and Theater. John Steven Paul. He to Pray, I to Create: The Concept of Kenosis and the Stanislavski System. Daniel Larner. Trucking Systems From Greece To America: Metaphorai, The Bacchai, and the Problem of Vision in the Contemporary Theatre. Daniel Larner. Metaphor II: Understanding Dramatic Form In The Transportation Systems Of Metaphor. Daniel Larner. Comic Ritual in a Tragic World: Lessons in the Metaphor of Drama. Andrew D. Ryder. Translating a Medieval Religious Text Into a Contemporary Theatrical Experience. Mark C. Pilkinton. The True Temptation of Christ: "To Suffyr temptacion it is grett peyn". George A. Scranton. RENT: Reinterpreting The Gospel of Mark At the Close of the Millennium. Dan Cawthon. Images Of Transcendence In The Plays of Brian Friel. George A. Scranton. Love And Lovers: Mutuality, Sin, Grace And The Future In Molière's Vision Of Comedy.

Vol. 2, No. 1: Fall 2003

Articles:

Peter Civetta. The Performance of God: Religious Discourse in the Aftermath of 11 September. Robert F. Gross. Glamour and Frightful Mutilation: Kondoleon, Kierkegaard and Camp. Mark Pizzato. Soyinka's Bacchae, African Gods, and Postmodern Mirrors. Eli Rozik. The Ritual Origin of Theatre—A Scientific Theory or Theatrical Ideology? Herbert Sennett. Preaching as Performance (A Preliminary Analytical Model).

Vol. 1, No. 1: Fall 2002

Articles:

Norman A. Bert. Theatre is Religion. Davida Bloom. White, But Not Quite: The Jewish Character and Anti-Semitism - Negotiating a Location in the Gray Zone Between Other and Not. William Davies King. Performing the Holy Ghost: Revelations of the Reverend Edward Irving in 1830-31. Scott Magelssen. Bloody Spectacle or Religious Commentary?: Divination by Entrails in Seneca’s Oedipus. William Douglas Powers. Returning to the Sacred: An Eliadean Interpretation of Speck’s Account of the Cherokee Booger Dance. Delyse Ryan. 'Two Hours Genuine Fun Without the Vulgarity'; As the Bishop Said to the Actress. Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. The Cross and the Bomb: Two Catholic Dramas in Response to Nagasaki. Michael A. Zampelli. Trent Revisited: A Reappraisal of Early Modern Catholicism’s Relationship with the Commedia Italiana.

External links

• Archived by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education