Founded in 1984 by the pioneering arts service organization Theatre Communications Group, the magazine featured cowboy-hatted playwright Sam Shepard on its first cover in April of that year. Published nine times a year, including double issues for January/February, May/June, and July/August, the magazine now has an estimated readership of 50,000, mostly within the theatre profession

Drawing contributions from noted practitioners and scholars, Theatre Journal features social and historical studies, production reviews, and theoretical inquiries that analyze dramatic texts and production. Theatre Journal is an official publication of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE).

The journal seeks to reflect the evolving diversity of critical idioms prevalent in the scholarship of differing world contexts.

Over the years, NTQ has developed a reputation for a "down-to-earth approach" to theatre studies.

The journal's audience includes scholars and students of theatre, educators, members of theatre associations, actors, directors, playwrights, dramaturgs, designers, and theatre enthusiasts. Theatre Topics is an official publication of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). "An excellent addition to the literature of drama.

Its theatrical and historical orientations are broadly conceived. Performance-centered and historiographic studies from all points across the historical, cultural, and methodological spectra are welcome. Recent issues have included an article on the early professional deaf theatre in post-Stalinist Soviet Union, a study of the gestural vocabulary found in surviving images of early commedia dell'arte, a philosophical treatise by Alan Badiou, and an essay on the impact of neoliberalism—from the classroom to the department to the “global university”—that suggests how theatre and performance scholars might approach the political difficulties currently threatening the mission of higher education.