It has been impossible to work on this issue of Prompt that centers on Domestic Spaces without reflecting on the idea of home. Ironically, since our last issue, all of us at Prompt have experienced transitions in our home life.  

In one sense, home for all three of us was at Penn State, but we have each moved on. Jeanmarie Higgins is now Professor and Chair of Theatre & Dance at The University of Texas at Arlington; Ryan Douglass is Assistant Professor of Scene Design at Purdue University; and I am Assistant Professor in the School of Theatre & Dance at San Francisco State University. Our new “academic” homes require us to be in separate places and I dearly miss my colleagues and friends. Johnny Mercer’s 1946 song “Anyplace I Hang My Hat is Home” suggests that home is not a place, but a state of mind. In that sense, Prompt is also a kind of home, and it has kept us together despite the geographical distance. 

With this issue, we welcome more than 40 artists, scholars, and students to our home. Together they have created eight extraordinary new plays and performances. Special thanks go to Les Gray, who introduces this issue with their thoughtful and provocative essay, “The Non-Binary Domestic Space Onstage.”

We also want to thank Editorial Assistant Arushi Grover for her labor and talent in helping organize and edit this issue. 

I am grateful for the ever-expanding home that Prompt has become. 

-Michael Schweikardt