New York-based journalist Adam Wassilchalk said he was “delightfully surprised” at the optimism and excitement he found around the prospect of starting a theatre company today. Reporting on the subject for this issue (p. 20), he found that, despite “turbulent situations in a challenging landscape,” folks are still finding the effort worthwhile and are “overwhelmingly encouraging” of others to take on the challenge. “You don’t have to have it all figured out right at the start,” Wassilchalk said. “For many of the folks I spoke to, they were actively learning as they were doing it. It doesn’t have to be intimidating, especially if you have great collaborators on your side.”

“I heard these artists grapple with the same negotiations that I’ve known in my own body,” said Arkansas-based journalist Miranda Purcell. Reporting on six Puerto Rican artists (p. 34) in advance of TCG’s 2026 National Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Purcell said her conversations “reinforced that many of us are in the same ongoing process,” not only finding ways to live their passions, but creating the space and structure that allows those passions to endure. “I hope readers who are not Puerto Rican come away with a more dimensional understanding of us—beyond color and warmth and celebration—and see the rigor, contradiction, and interiority that live alongside the brightness,” Purcell said. “And for Puerto Rican readers, I hope there is a moment of self-recognition.”