By Brian Shea Journals PR and Advertising Coordinator NBC’s recent broadcast of a live version of “The Sound of Music” has musical theatre on the minds of many. Rumor has it that the network will make a live holiday musical a part of their strategy going forward. Even though Johns Hopkins University Press has a strong base of scholarly journals which focus on the theatre arts—Theatre Journal and Theatre Topics, along with Shakespeare Bulletin and Shakespeare Quarterly—the idea of branching out into musical entertainment doesn’t have seem to come up in any long-term planning. But a blog post from publisher McSweeney’s has opened our eyes to a whole new world. Humor writer T.G. Gibbon compiled a list of “Actual Academic Journals Which Could Be Broadway Shows If They Had Exclamation Points Added!” We tend to think of Callaloo as the pre-eminent journal focused on literature and arts of the African diaspora. Now we know it could turn heads on the Great White Way as Callaloo! And what would the reviews be for The Henry James Review!? I wonder if they would use real animals in the stage version of The Lion and the Unicorn! The staging potential for Modernism/modernity! just blows my mind. As I looked for more information on the list, I realized that McSweeney’s actually published the blog post some time ago. That drove me to our ever-growing list of journals to find new Broadway candidates. So if you need me, I’ll be working on the score of Feminist Formations!
