2024 Year in Review

12/30/2024

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Another year (our 14th!) in the books. We are so grateful to the people and organizations who helped Theater in Asylum thrive in 2024. We accomplished a lot this year, and we’ll chronicle it below for our Year in Review. You can also catch up on our crowd-sourced lists of art we loved this year (film & television, music, books, theater).

If you're in a position to do so, please consider making a year-end donation to support our work in 2025. Once again, thank you!

Reflections

Research & Artistic
After every Theater in Asylum project, and perhaps after every artist’s process, there is an inevitable moment of panic: “What if I never have anything to say or make again?!” There’s an emptiness, an exhaustion, that takes hold after finishing a project. When The Nobodies Who Were Everybody finally premiered in 2023, we were jubilant and proud of the culmination of years of work. We were also a bit depleted and without an obvious next step for the next production. We would have loved to have mounted The Nobodies again, but without major funding or institutional support, we didn’t know how to proceed. In the meantime, artistic impatience and curiosity crept back into our lives.

As we recently wrote about on our blog, we’ve turned our research to FAUST. Paul and Katie’s private research became a book club (Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark, Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger, and myriad adaptations of the Faust myth). The research ballooned, spurring Cold Readings, a workshop in August, and most recently the beginnings of a production that we experimented with at our cabaret in November.

That experiment, FAUST: Brooklyn, 2024, performed at The How to Survive the End of the World Cabaret, a night of new performance we produced in November. Alongside new work by the incredible Anthropologists, Adin Lenahan, Melissa Mowry, and Ali Dineen exploring end-times and how to survive them, Theater in Asylum’s 25-minute piece posited Faust as a burnt-out activist who succumbs to the bartender Mephistopheles’ forget-your-troubles mocktail. The night was electrifying and the feedback we received propelled even more questions to take this incubating show forward. Now that the election is over, and with myriad world-enders still raging, we see this work as essential to surviving the siren’s call to nihilism. Say “No!” to Mephistopheles and “Yes!” to your neighbor! Making this directive clear, compelling, and irresistible is our task for 2025.

Our research will continue next year with another book club (Ed Simon’s The Devil’s Contract), another workshop, more Cold Readings, and more frenzied text messages (“OMG did you know ______?!” and “What if _______?!” “Is ____ Faust? Is _____ Mephistopheles?” “Is this the bargain?” “Is this how we repent/escape?”).

2024 began with the dreaded blank page. 2025 is beginning with more pages than can possibly fit in the next play. Let the sifting and throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall phase begin!

Organizational
Our big goal this year was to transition from fiscal sponsorship (under Fractured Atlas) to become a 501(c)3 (a non-profit) organization in our own right. It turns out this process is much more complicated than we initially anticipated. We’ve been working with the lawyers for six months, and we’re still at least a few months from this process being complete. But once it is, be sure we’ll sing it from the rooftops.

Here’s what we’ve done so far:

Worked with The Lawyers Alliance to be matched with a firm that will guide us through this process.
Worked with the firm Weil to create our bylaws and reincorporation documents.
Found six fabulous almost-board members that we cannot wait to introduce to you.

Once the documents are all complete, Weil will submit them to the IRS. Once approved, we will sign them and refile with the state, our fiscal sponsor Fractured Atlas, and our bank. Finally, we will have our first board meeting where we will induct our board and begin the nonprofit adventure!

Financial
The year is almost over, and overall we had a positive year financially! We are ending in the black, with some money saved up to support artistic developmental processes in 2025. Once we’ve had time to rectify and close 2024’s books, we’ll release our transparency report with the full budget (early January 2025).

Grants
Theater in Asylum received three grants this year, which truly made the work possible:

Actors' Equity Foundation
Brooklyn Arts Council
IndieSpace's The Big Give: Pay Your People Grant

Indie Theaters Dismantling Supremacy / Anti-Racism
Theater in Asylum joined a coalition of other indie theater companies in August 2020 to learn, unpack, and make our companies more actively antiracist. In 2024 this group, Indie Theaters Dismantling Supremacy (ITDS), completed a consultancy with Nissy Aya, who guided us in writing our “Theory of Change” to map out who Theater in Asylum has been and where we are going. 2025 brings more work on these theories and continued peer-led education, feedback, and mutual accountability.

Looking Ahead
In 2025, we will continue exploring the Faust myth with the intention of mounting a full production in 2026. Cold Readings and our book club will explore different adaptations of the myth, and a closed-door workshop will put these ideas to the page/stage. In fall 2025, we aim to host another cabaret, continuing to showcase and be inspired by our brilliant, compassionate community. Administratively, we will finally complete the 501(c)3 process, which will involve an extensive switch-over of some accounting and administrative processes. We will launch our biggest fundraiser yet to celebrate our new status and prepare for our next production.

2024’s Major Events and Projects

Participants and attendees at our August Faust/Hope Workshop

The FAUST/HOPE Workshop

What | A two week process to bring together our extensive research on Faust and create as much performable material as possible. This resulted in about 30 minutes of material which we presented to an invited audience of 20 people for feedback.
When | August 9-17, 2024.
Where | The Episcopal Actors’ Guild.
Who | We worked with Rachel Casparian, Sean Devare, Jesse Koehler, Francine Pinheiro, and Jo Weingandt.
Result | We received great feedback which we applied to our work on The How to Survive the End of the World Cabaret.

Photos by Shubhra Mishra

The How to Survive the End of the World Cabaret

What | A night of new works to survive, resist, and reverse the end of the world.
When | November 1-2, 2024
Where | The Jalopy Theater, Brooklyn
Who | Featuring new work by Theater in Asylum, The Anthropologists, Adin Lenahan, Melissa Mowry, with music by Ali Dineen
Artist prompt | It seems every day offers a new or accelerated threat to our future. A dangerous former president, who demonized immigrants and directly threatened us and our neighbors, may soon return to power. The future of our workforce, globally and right here in Brooklyn, faces radical shifts as artificial intelligence is adopted in more and more industries. Red Hook (where our show will take place) faces existential climate threats as a low-lying coastal neighborhood. Storytelling and imagining ways forward is what we artists do best. Now is the time for artists to use their skills and offer solutions to the myriad threats that face us. The stories we need most right now—unlike those offered by politicians, economists, tech-enthusiasts, and even scientists—are those stories which will give us hope, help us survive, and resist the end of the world.
# of Artists | 22
Attendees | 500 (approximately 100 in-person over two nights, with an additional 400 streaming online).
TIA’s contribution to the cabaret | FAUST: Brooklyn, 2024: A developmental step on the road to a production exploring the myth of Faust in our contemporary politics, to be produced in 2026. The piece started with an early, exploratory workshop in August 2024. For the piece for the Cabaret, we worked with three returning artists from the August workshop (Rachel Casparian, Francine Pinheiro, and Jesse Koehler). By working with the same artists, we were afforded the opportunity to pick up where we left off and develop a 30-minute piece from the kernel of an idea to a staged, memorized piece in only 24 hours of rehearsal. We received great feedback from the cabaret piece, particularly around the character motivations and where hope truly lives in the piece. We look to expand the story: seeing more of Faust's descent into despair, and following him as he goes deeper into Mephistopheles' offer, and—hopefully—out of it.
The result | There's nothing quite like that feeling of "we're as ready as we can be, which is to say, not quite as ready as we'd like, and here comes the audience!" The spirit of "let's put on a show" was readily on display the first night, and the room buzzed with that electricity. Not only was it a thrilling night for artists and audiences in the moment, but that feeling of "things are possible" is exactly what we wanted people to leave with—we can stand strong against anything that comes our way. On the second night, the majority of the artists plus some audience members including collaborators in TIA's most recent full-length production—stayed for hours celebrating and challenging each other's work. It was exactly the sort of interplay we hoped would happen and was a direct result of the work we have put into creating the time, space, and ease of being in community with one another.

Some singing jocks at our final Cold Reading of 2024

Cold Readings
Another great year for Cold Readings!

What | This program, which gathers our community to read and discuss a published play cold (without rehearsal), aims to spur theater literacy and a confidence in speaking about theater. This year we read 9 plays, including 1 musical. 3 readings were guest-facilitated, with 6 by TIA staff. 55% of our playwrights were women, 13% were of color. Our oldest play was from 1897 and our newest was from 2019.
When | Roughly monthly. 9 Cold Readings total.
Where | Most plays were online, but the Episcopal Actors’ Guild has become our new home for in-person/hybrid readings.
Who | Our Cold Readings averages 10 attendees per reading this year. After collaborating with us on The Nobodies and participating in many Cold Readings, Marcella Adams came on board as our curator this year.
What We Read | Much of the year looked at apocalyptic settings, as we investigated how hope is cultivated in what feels like the end of the world. Toward the end of the year, we shifted to Faustian stories. Next year, we’ll continue our investigation of Faust, with more readings and ways for our Cold Readers to engage in our larger show development process.
Amplifying Good Work | As always, we used our Cold Readings program to amplify the good work of other organizations. You can see all these organizations in our Giving Tuesday post here.

Puck is an avid reader

Book Club

What | Separate from our avid play-reading, we also read books together as a means of bringing more people into our research process. Our book club gathered three times this year, reading: Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit, Doppelganger by Naomi Klein, and multiple adaptations of the Faust myth.
Who | Our book club fluctuated from 5-10 people each gathering.
Where | We met on Zoom.

2024 Timeline

January 12 - TIA Holiday Party
January 17 - Cold Reading
January 31 - Book Club: Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
February 21 - Cold Reading
March 27 - Cold Reading
April 24 - Cold Reading
May 2 - TIA Happy Hour
May 15 - Book Club: Doppelganger by Naomi Klein
May 22 - Cold Reading
June 12 - Cold Reading
July 10 - Book Club: Multiple Faust adaptations
August 9-17 - Faust/Hope Workshop
August 18 - TIA Picnic
September 18 - Cold Reading
October 16 - Cold Reading
October 23 - TIA Happy Hour
November 1-2 - The How to Survive the End of the World Cabaret
December 18 - Cold Reading

2024 By the Numbers

Event attendees: approximately 600
2024 Season Donors: 83
Paid artists: 31
Paid full-year staff: 5
Admin meetings: 48
Cold Readings: 9 (6 online, 3 in-person)
Rehearsal Hours: 24
Live performances: 3 (one was a closed workshop presentation)

Previous Years in Review

Photo by Shubhra Mishra

Thank you!

We are so grateful to the artists, audience, volunteers, donors, friends, and family who made Theater in Asylum's 2024 possible. We are so lucky to have such a vibrant and supportive community.

As we turn the page on 2024, we look with determined hope to 2025. If you are in a position to do so, please consider making a year-end donation to support our work in 2025. Thank you and happy New Year!

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