ABOUT
¡Olé!, 2014
Theater in Asylum makes rigorously-researched, ensemble-driven theater to challenge and empower. We prize the theater as a space — as an asylum — where we can process and question, where reality is temporarily suspended, and where we can create with joy. Since 2010, Theater in Asylum has brought New York artists and not-yet-artists together to read, research, devise, and perform politically charged, of-the-moment new plays.
What do we mean by asylum?
In the theater, we can suspend the pressures and preconceptions of our lives, and of reality itself. Our name is inspired by the idea of asylum as a space of refuge. For us, asylum is in the phrase “suspend your disbelief.” In our asylum, we have the space to question the past, interpret the present, and imagine a future. This empowers us to re-enter reality better prepared to change it.
Read about our Mission, Vision, and Values.
Read about our Community and Transparency commitments.
What do we mean by asylum?
In the theater, we can suspend the pressures and preconceptions of our lives, and of reality itself. Our name is inspired by the idea of asylum as a space of refuge. For us, asylum is in the phrase “suspend your disbelief.” In our asylum, we have the space to question the past, interpret the present, and imagine a future. This empowers us to re-enter reality better prepared to change it.
Read about our Mission, Vision, and Values.
Read about our Community and Transparency commitments.
Our Work and Process
Our work stems from confounding realities and contradictions that we can’t stop thinking about. We embrace a trifecta of historical context, political questions, and the lives of artists. Each major project graduates through three principal stages:
Alongside these major stages we host numerous book clubs, research gatherings, group trips to the theater, and seasonal parties.
- Cold Readings: unrehearsed play readings and discussions for research
- Cabarets: where our new work is tried out alongside new work by fellow artists in our extended network
- Productions: the final synthesis of our work
Alongside these major stages we host numerous book clubs, research gatherings, group trips to the theater, and seasonal parties.
Productions
Hephaestus. 2020. Photo by Ryan Prado, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center/Rough Draft Festival.
Our productions have taken on a variety of subjects. We have looked to the lives of artists including Vaslav Nijinsky (Nijinsky in Asylum), Mary Shelley and Ray Kurzweil (Frankenstein), Federico García Lorca and Salvador Dalí (¡Olé!), and the Brontë sisters (The Brontës). We have looked to complex society processes like revolution (Revolution in 1) and gentrification (Totally Wholesome Foods). Most recently we looked to the history of Federal Theatre Project (The Nobodies Who Were Everybody).
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Cabarets
TIA cabarets delve into our productions’ themes more deeply. We invite artists in our community to create short performances interpreting a theme that unifies the night. We program the evening to emphasize contradictions among interpretations and have multiple intermissions where audience members and artists can discuss the work over food and drinks. Previous cabarets have looked at how death becomes memory (The Death / Memory Project), how the locations of our battles define them (The Battlegrounds Project), and how the national imagination is guided in the early parts of presidential campaign season (The Countdown Cabaret).
Timeline:
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Cold Readings
A Cold Reading, 2020
Our third core program is Cold Readings, where we invite our community to join us in reading and discussing plays. Similar to a book club, we read plays without the pressure of performance and cherish the opportunity to learn about our artform. The series has vastly grown since beginning in 2015, with frequent guest facilitators and new readers joining all the time.
Leadership
Artistic Directors: Paul Bedard & Katie Palmer
Managing Director: Kathryn Appleton
PR & Marketing Manager: Charlotte Dow
Managing Director: Kathryn Appleton
PR & Marketing Manager: Charlotte Dow
Years in Review
- 2024 - A year surviving the end of the world, and beginning our work on Faust.
- 2023 - A year premiering The Nobodies Who Were Everybody
- 2022 - A year of development with The FTP Cabaret and a workshop of The FTP Show.
- 2021 - A year spent mostly online, with weekly Cold Readings and another virtual iteration of The Debates. The fall brought our first in-person production in a year and a half with Occupy Prescott.
- 2020 - A year beginning with a cabaret and Hephaestus, then came the pandemic's start, weekly Cold Readings, and our first online production: The Debates 2020.
- 2010-2019 - A look back at our first ten years.
Transparency Reports
Each year we release an overview of our financial workings: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020. Learn more about our transparency commitments here.