2023 Year in Review12/29/2023  As 2023 comes to a close, we want to reiterate our gratitude to the community who made this year possible. For the past few weeks, we've been looking back at all we achieved this year. If you missed it, here are a few links:
Keep on scrolling to read more about all Theater in Asylum produced and accomplished this year. If you're in a position to do so, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our 2024 season. Once again, thank you! Reflections  Photo by Shubhra Mishra The Nobodies Who Were Everybody 2023 was wild. After years of research, scripting, workshopping, revising, and dreaming, we finally presented The Nobodies Who Were Everybody. This time last year the piece was still without a title. It was just “The FTP Show.” We are so proud to have presented our largest production to date. This play had the longest research period and creation process of any of our work, and it also had the most number of performances. We believe deeply in the message of the piece — that everyone deserves art and the opportunity to see and make it. We continue to agonize over questions of why public funding for the arts seems not possible in this country any longer. We once had it, and while it was far from perfect, it was there and it made new artforms bloom and inspired new audiences to gather. The Nobodies was an incredible accomplishment, made possible by not only our 30ish direct collaborators over the years, but also by our ever-growing community of Cold Readers, book clubbers, donors, and friends. It took all of us to gestate this play. We hope everyone reading this takes pride in that, and shares in our feeling of accomplishment at having made this work possible. The future of The Nobodies is a bit unclear. The show was quite a lift financially, and producing it again would require even more funds (Actors’ Equity only allows companies to utilize the affordable “Showcase Code” once per show). We make a point to pay everyone equally, so moving the entire company and crew up to the level of a full AEA contract would be an unachievable in TIA's current financial structure. We’ve submitted the play to a festival and are looking for more co-production opportunities. We think it may be possible to remount the show with a co-producer, but to do it again on our own is likely out of our reach at present. We’ll see!  Cold Readings Cold Readings had a great year. We read nine plays. We watched one movie together, Voodoo Macbeth. A good chunk of the plays we read continued to mine the 1930’s to enhance our work on The Nobodies. This fall, we held a reading series of plays by living Latine playwrights. Melissa Mowry was our incredible coordinator for the year. She brought order to what is often an unwieldy program, implementing timelines and processes that will continue to be useful for years to come. We had some fabulous guest facilitators this year including Inés del Castillo, Diego de la Espriella, and Frankie Alicea. Cold Readings continues to be a glorious home for conversation around plays and we look forward to it continuing for years to come! Financial Please see our Transparency report here.  Organizational In 2023, we continued our annually contracted staff model. Six people were paid monthly for all their work during the year, rather than on a project-by-project basis. Alongside the two Artistic Directors (Paul and Katie) and Managing Director (Kathryn), we also had a PR & Marketing Coordinator (Charlotte), a Cold Readings Coordinator (Melissa), and a Grants and Fundraising Coordinator (Adin). Over the course of the year, we came to the realization that we need to transition from being a fiscally sponsored organization to becoming our own 501c3 nonprofit. A major grant that we had been fortunate to receive in years past changed its eligibility, barring us from future consideration. This grant joined the (large) pool of grants who will only consider applicants who are nonprofits (and won’t consider those who have an LCC with fiscal sponsorship). There are also many savings (on services like Google and Photoshop, space rentals, and tax filings) that will be available to us once we complete this transformation. It’s going to be a big lift next year, but we’re giving ourselves ample time to do it. Supporting our Growing Community Our Community grew in beautiful ways this year. We welcomed new faces to Cold Readings and had a blast in residency at the Jalopy Theater with The Nobodies; but the most exciting and important addition to our community was also the smallest. On September 10, 2023, baby Mira entered the world and filled our hearts. TIA is now co-led by a parent and we are eager to grow and make sure our asylum has space for both a tiny person and also a busy mom.  Mira Calliope Rice, born September 10, 2023 Looking Ahead Becoming a 501c3 is a big task. We’ll need to build a board, revamp our bookkeeping, and find a lawyer to shepherd us through the process. But we also are beginning to think about our next production. We don’t know quite what it is yet, but it’s related to hope and how people sustain hope in dark times. We’ll be launching a book club next year. We’ll also produce The How to Survive the End of the World Cabaret in November 2024, just before the election. Thank you for all your support of Theater in Asylum’s work! Help us make our next year possible, by making a donation here. Major Events and Projects
The Nobodies Who Were Everybody
Cold Readings
More highlights
 Managing Director Kathryn and Artistic Directors Paul and Katie performing the first draft of our mission statement from 2010 (“Stop, Think, Go”) at Paul’s wedding. Timeline
2023 by the Numbers
 The team behind The Nobodies Who Were Everybody at the first reading for the August production Previous Years in Review Thank you! We are so grateful to the artists, audience, volunteers, donors, friends, and family who made Theater in Asylum's 2023 season possible. We are so lucky to have such a vibrant and supportive community.
As we turn the page on 2023, we look with hope to 2024. If you are in a position to do so, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to our 2024 season. Happy New Year!
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