Donald J. Trump, like it or not, is POTUS. This president is also a Caligula, a fool-king, and a trickster. He is a performer rather than an actor: someone who inhabits his own (narcissistic) persona to an extreme degree, not someone who follows a prescribed script. His policies, executive orders, and appointments show he is cruel, dangerous, unpredictable, and entertaining.

The US federal government spends over $80 billion a year on education, yet the electorate’s powers of reasoning are waning.

As the “alternative” art world collapses due to funding cuts, critical artists engaged in socially responsible projects outside of the museum are faced with a great paradox: the work is more necessary than ever but the means and resources for it are becoming scarcer. We must find “utopian jobs” for critical artists operating outside of the capital art world.

Perhaps now is the time to restage Artaud’s poem, “To Have Done with the Judgment of God,” in response to a new Pentagon program for American soldiers.

What has happened to evidence, rationality, and critical thinking at a time when Donald Trump’s mendacious performance of guilelessness commands the airwaves, and when the news industry — especially arts criticism — has foundered?

Odin Teatret’s founding director resumes his longstanding relationship with TDR and its editor; both have had an impact on his personal biography and on contemporary theatre.

In all of theatrical history, one theatre-goer has seen more plays than any other. Who knows who that person is? TDR does.

In 2007, Routledge published Theory for Performance Studies as part of its Theory 4 series, listing Philip Auslander as author. When, in August, The Chronicle of Higher Education revealed that much of the book was lifted word-for-word from the template for the series, Theory for Religious Studies by Timothy K. Beal and William E. Deal, TDR editor Richard Schechner convened via email and phone conversations a “ TDR Forum,” asking leaders in the field to respond to the book and the series. Schechner and other respondents address issues of plagiarism, corporate takeovers of academic publishing, and the dumbing down of performance studies, asking why a notable scholar such as Auslander would undertake such an egregious piece of “scholarship.” Deal and Beal answer some questions put to them by Schechner, and Routledge's Claire L'Enfant and Talia Rodgers offer their perspectives.