September 25, 2020

We're 10 years old!

Dear Friends,

We are thrilled and honored to reach this milestone, and grateful for the conversations, rehearsals, donations, volunteer hours, and heartfelt performances that made it possible.
We founded the company to “provide asylum to characters and subjects in need. With ensemble-driven performance we investigate to inspire curiosity, empathy, and action.”  In our first 10 years we’ve offered asylum to artists like Vaslav Nijinsky, Federico García Lorca, and the Brontë sisters, as well as to subjects like revolution and democratic debate. We’ve offered our stage to guest artists at our cabarets, and our love of play-reading to our community in our Cold Reading series. We’ve traveled to Chicago and Prague, and performed at theaters all over New York.

When we decided to formally organize as a company, we set out to create a space to play, explore, and learn with friends and collaborators who challenge and inspire us. We cannot thank you and this vibrant community enough for all the work and growth you’ve made possible.

10 years after our first piece–Nijinsky in Asylum–premiered, we pause to reflect on and celebrate our past, while imagining our future. We hope you enjoy this retrospective and are as eager for what’s next as we are. Onwards!

Peace, power, and love to you,
Paul, Katie, Kathryn, and Hilarie

Watch an interview about our first 10 years

Read about our first 10 years

Theater in Asylum, 10 and counting...

PictureA Cold Reading, 2020. Photo by Theater in Asylum
  • Full-length Productions: 10
  • Cold Readings: 91
  • Public Readings: 12
  • Cabarets: 17
  • Theaters performed in: 16
  • Legitimate rehearsal spaces we’ve used: 9
  • After-hours workplaces used for rehearsal: 4
  • Ball pits we’ve had meetings in: 1
  • Total Fundraised for our work: $70,608.72
  • Eblasts Sent: 375
  • Company meetings: 216 + more before we started archiving everything in 2013...
  • Footnotes in Debates Scripts: 1,172

Theater in Asylum, through the years...

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

Onwards!

Taking the past few months to reflect on all Theater in Asylum accomplished in its first ten years has been dizzying and humbling. We are so grateful for the time, space, and trust we received this decade to make work and share stories with you, our community.

So much has changed since we’ve started, both in our company and the world. The need for empathy, solidarity, and investigation into history has only grown more urgent.

This year has been the perfect opportunity to reflect on our mission statement and reach for deeper clarity and purpose.To construct our new Mission, Vision, and Values, we are following the process we always use: thinking through every angle thoroughly, leaning on our community for feedback, engaging in some useful debate, and eventually making a leap of faith. We cannot wait to share a revised mission statement, and with it a renewed purpose. 

But first, a toast — to the asylum we’ve built. A sanctuary for theater and conversation where thinking deeply, rigorously, and empathically is hallowed. A shelter for our characters –– many of them victims of oppression in their lives –– who come into our space, where their art and stories may shine again.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for joining us on this ride so far. Without you we wouldn’t have gotten here.

Onward!

All our love,
Paul, Katie, Kathryn, and Hilarie

Thank you to everyone who made this milestone possible.

Thank you to everyone who made this milestone possible.

Thank you to those early and frequent collaborators, to our families and friends, who made these 10 years so sweet: Frankie Alicea, the Appletons, Laura Aristovulos, Jessie Atkinson, Christian Avíla, Ariella Axelbank, Andrew Balmer, Jake Beckhard, Sharlene and Joyce and all the Bedards, Randall Benichak, Judy “Cuz” Berger, Melissa Brading, Adrian Bridges, Theresa Burns, Matt Clemons, Jonas Cohen, Kelly Colburn, Mark Costello, Calandra Daby, Dan Daly, Christopher DeSantis, Nadia Diamond, Lawrence Dreyfuss, Karen Lehman Foster, Yonit Friedman, Rick Fudge, Kate Gazzaniga, Amanda Ghosh, Linnea Gregg, Arielle Hader, Ryan Haddad, Kara Hankard, Chris Harcum, Gethsemane Herron-Coward, Elizabeth Hess, Paul Hinkes, Colleen Hughes, Willie Johnson, Meghan Kennedy, Samantha Keogh, Alyssa Kim, Starr Kirkland, Esther Yumi Ko, Jacob Lasser, Marilyn Lawson, Amelia Lembeck, Rebekah Levin, Julia Levine, Diana Levy, Maggie Low, Sofia Lund, Andrea Marks, Hogan McLaughlin, Eric Mercado, Cynthia Meng, the Miliones, Makha Mthembu, Lucy Myrtue, Dylan Neely, Julia Nickerson, Patricia Noonan, Ben Otto, Lizzy and all the Palmers, Russell Peck, Alice Pencavel, Katie Polin, Zac Porter, Greg Redlawsk, Jacob Marx Rice, Mandy Robbins, Jonelle Robinson, Abby Schreer, Ramsey Scott, Manuela Sosa, Hilarie Spangler, Zach Stephens, Dani Stompor, Blake Sugarman, Lucas Tahiruzzaman Syed, Bessie Taliaferro, Valeska von Schirmeister, Dan Stearns, Jen Tash, Marchelle Thurman, Slats Toole, Alison Walter, Kelly Webb, the Wohlers, Ran Xia, and Sarah Ziegler.

Thank you to the Playwrights Horizons Theater School, to NYU and Columbia, to New York City for bringing us together. Thank you to Erez Ziv and everyone at FRIGID New York (Horse Trade Theater Group) for taking a chance on us and pushing us to become a company. Thank you to Piper Theatre and the Old Stone House, The Episcopal Actors’ Guild, the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, and all the groups who have given us opportunities since. Thank you to Jimmy’s No. 43, Bar 82, and above all Dempsey’s, our dearly missed watering holes. Thank you to the Gray Mare, Cooper’s, and the 12th Street Ale House for taking care of us and hosting our events since! Thank you to the League of Independent Theater, Fractured Atlas, A.R.T./New York, and The Artist Co-op for supporting and advocating for us.

Thank you to everyone who has worked on or attended a Theater in Asylum project. We are so grateful for the love and support and ideas and energy you give. You make this company.