Contemporary Theatre Review

Contemporary Theatre Review is published by Taylor & Francis and is in Zone 3 of Arts in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Theatre and Performance Studies, Human auditory perception and evaluation and Diverse Scientific and Economic Studies, together about 47.5% of its articles. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)

Contemporary Theatre Review is a peer-reviewed journal of theatre and performance studies. The journal is 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 supports and encourages a wide range of methodologies and approaches, especially interdisciplinary inflections. Each issue includes scholarly articles, critical documents (including interviews and forum discussions), book reviews, and ‘backpages’, with an emphasis on the analysis of new, under-represented or otherwise marginalised examples of performance, grounded in their historical, social, cultural and political conditions of production. Contemporary Theatre Review’s website at www.contemporarytheatrereview.org offers 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. ‘I have just read Contemporary Theatre Review from cover to cover. Sound scholarship, vigorous thinking, political impact with a renewed sense of the part theatre might play in the contemporary – all wrapped up in a volume light enough to hold in the studio and weighty enough to be talking about some time after the work is over. A welcome challenge to theatre-lite.’ Alan Read – Professor of Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, Kings College, London ‘ Contemporary Theatre Review is unique among scholarly theatre journals in its deft combination of primary and secondary sources on current and recent theatre practice. That is, its scrupulously-edited, peer-reviewed critical essays are juxtaposed with articles and interviews providing first-hand documentation of work by major contemporary practitioners of theatre and performance. These materials are reflected on further by the forum-like debates often conducted in the “Backpages” section of the journal (which, I confess, I often turn to first). But the most important thing of all about CTR is its insistently internationalist outlook: though rightly centred in its own, UK context, the journal's ongoing attention to non-Anglophone theatre practice, in continental Europe an

From the journal's Aims & Scope

Research area (LetPub): THEATER

Editorial board by country: 1 in mainland China (about 25%); most named United Kingdom 2, Mainland China 1, Philippines 1 (4 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website · 2026-09-29

CAS Journal Ranking

JCR / CiteScore quartiles on the journal's website

• CiteScore Q2 · 2025

Publisher-reported: JCR figures are Clarivate's and CiteScore figures Scopus's to confirm; both are a different system from the CAS zones.Publisher website

Database indexing

AHCIScopusLetPub

International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub

Indexing the journal's website claims

OCLC, British Humanities Index, Humanities International Index, International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance, International Index to the Performing ArtsPublisher website

As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.

Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.

Impact

Impact factor (publisher) 2025

0.3Publisher website · 2026-09-29

5-year impact factor (publisher) 2025

0.4Publisher website · 2026-09-29

CiteScore 2026-06

0.5LetPub · 2026-09-13

CiteScore (publisher) 2025

0.5Publisher website · 2026-09-29

SJR 2026-06

0.11LetPub · 2026-09-13

SJR (publisher) 2025

0.11Publisher website · 2026-09-29

SNIP 2026-06

0LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

29OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

i10-index

114OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

2-year mean citedness

0.19OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

Self-citation rate

0%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Share of gold OA articles

21.43%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Volume

Articles per year

17LetPub · 2026-09-13

Downloads per year (publisher)

72,000Publisher website · 2026-09-29

Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.

Other sources

Acceptance rate (publisher)

43%Publisher website · 2026-09-29

Submission to first decision

99 daysPublisher website · 2026-09-29

First decision after review

120 daysPublisher website · 2026-09-29

Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.

A hybrid journal charges the APC only when the author chooses open access; publishing under the subscription model is usually free.

The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.

Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

ISSN

1048-6801

Electronic ISSN

1477-2264

Latest issue on the website

Volume 36, Issue 1 (2026)

Official links

• Journal homepage ↗LetPub
• Submission system ↗Publisher website
• Special issues ↗Publisher website