Theater in Asylum believes transparency enables the sharing of power and responsibility. We commit to being open with how company decisions are made and money is spent. Below please find an overview of our finances in 2023. This is also on our website’s transparency page, a page we launched in 2021 as a way to showcase our finances and decision-making.

Note: This is a financial summary of our work in 2023. For a non-financial review, please see our 2023 Year in Review.

• We projected to spend ~$38k in 2023, but actually spent ~$34k.
• We projected to earn ~$37k in 2023, but we actually earned ~$33k.
• We netted a loss of about $1,600 in 2023, which we were able to cover with savings from previous years.
• After our annual fundraiser underperformed and learning that we did not win a number of grants, we rehauled our budget mid-year, cutting costs in all categories.
• While we usually only fundraise once per year (Dec-Jan), to address the budget shortfall in 2023 we launched a mid-year fundraiser, which did exceedingly well.
  
  

• The Nobodies Who Were Everybody, created and produced by Theater in Asylum, performed August 3-20, 2023 at the Jalopy Theater. 367 people attended. Due to union rules, we did not livestream or film this production. 
• Cold Readings, held in-person and online throughout the year. We hosted 9 readings this year with 135 people attending, averaging 15 people per reading. 6 were facilitated by Theater in Asylum leadership/annual staff, with 3 facilitated by guest facilitators.
  
  

Annually Contracted Staff

• Artistic Directors (2): $1,200 for all work during the year (does not receive project stipends).*
• Managing Director (1): $1,200 for all work during the year (does not receive project stipends).*
• PR and Marketing Manager (1): $1,200 for all work during year (does not receive project stipends)
• Cold Readings Coordinator (1): $1,200 for all work during year (does not receive project stipends)
• Fundraising and Grants Coordinator (1): $359 for all work during the year (also received a stipend for The Nobodies January reading and for The Nobodies August production).

The Nobodies Who Were Everybody

• January reading actors: $125 stipend
• August production: 
  • Full collaborators were paid an $800 stipend. **
  • Folks who come in just for performances (or are not doing the whole pre-production / rehearsal process) were paid a half stipend, $400. 
  • Hourly load-in and load-out labor was paid at $25/hour.

Cold Readings

• Cold Reading facilitators (up to 5): $50 per facilitation
• Readers and listeners are welcomed on a volunteer basis.

*Midyear budget revision: Artistic and Managing Directors were originally budgeted to receive $1,200 for all work during the year (does not receive project stipends). After the mid-year budget revision (March 2023), this was taken down to $120 for all work during the year (does not receive project stipends). Once all the dust had settled on 2023 expenses, the decision was made to reinstate the full $1,200 stipend for the Artistic and Managing Directors.

**The Nobodies... Collaborators were originally budged to receive $900 stipends for this project. After mid-year budget revision (March 2023), this was taken down to $800.

We had a particularly tough year with grants in 2023. With our fiscal sponsorship, we were limited in what grants we could apply to.

This past year we applied to:

• The Puffin Foundation ($2,000): We won this grant.
• The Actors Equity Foundation ($250): We won this grant. We applied for $1,000 but were awarded $250 due to a shortfall in funds at the foundation.
• ART/NY’s Small Theaters Grant ($5k-$10k across 2 years): We lost this grant.
• ART/NY’s Design Enhancement Grant ($5k-$10k): We lost this grant.
• BAC’s Brooklyn Arts Fund (up to $5,000): We lost this grant. 
• NYFA’s NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music, and Theatre (up to $50k): We lost this grant.
• Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation’s Performance Grant (up to $10k): We lost this grant.

Learnings and observations for future grant applications:

• Due to a change at the state level (NYSCA), we became ineligible for ART/NY’s Creative Opportunity Grant, a grant we had won in previous years.
• Although we have had success with BAC’s Brooklyn Arts Fund in the past, we did not win the grant this year. We believed that our application which focused on The Nobodies Who Were Everybody was perhaps our strongest grant application ever, but upon receiving feedback from BAC, we understand that this was a particularly competitive year and that there is still room for improvement in our applications (particularly our work samples).
• We have repeatedly received feedback that our video samples are weak. Due to Actors’ Equity (the actors’ union) barring the filming of their members without prohibitively expensive contracts, we have very little video documentation of our work. In addition, it seems from grant feedback that footage of our work is not what is desired in a “work sample.” Successful grants tend to include short documentaries, fully-produced short films with music, multiple cameras, and sophisticated editing. We have not prioritized this in the past, but are doing so now with an incredibly skilled video collaborator.
• We seem to have more success writing grant applications for cabarets (which spread money thinly across many artists) than for productions (which hires fewer artists with higher stipends for a more intensive collaboration).
  
  

Fundraising is always a challenge for us as it is so time consuming.

• Our 2023 fundraiser (running December 2022–January 2023) yielded $11,352 (or 81% of the $15,000 we attempted to raise). There were 81 donors with an average donation of $153 (median: $76). *
  
• Our emergency Spring 2023 fundraiser (running April–May, 2023) yielded $6,648. There were 38 donors with an average donation of $175 (median: $60).*
• Mid-year donations not tied to a fundraiser yielded $4,435. There were 64 donors with an average donation of $69 (median: $27).*

*Fiscal sponsorship and credit card processing fees not deducted.

367 people saw The Nobodies Who Were Everybody, with tickets on a sliding scale from $0-$40.

• 35 people paid the “Hero” price at $40/ticket.
• 110 people paid the “General” price at $30/ticket.
• 79 people paid the “Student/Artist/Low-income” price at $20/ticket.
• 38 people paid the TDF discounted price of $14/ticket.
• 105 people paid $0 in advance and donated what they could at the door.* This resulted in $417, or an average $4/ticket.

*Keeping a free ticket option available at every event is a priority to us. We do not want cost to be a barrier to seeing our work. Free tickets are obtainable to anyone who says they need one, no questions asked.

If tickets alone were to fund our work this year, we would have had to charge $94/ticket. This is obviously not feasible, but a dynamic we are always considering when balancing tickets, grants, and fundraising. At present, our work is only possible because of the incredible generosity of our community of donors. This community generated 65% of our income this year, and while we know that second major ask in the middle of the year was unprecedented we are deeply humbled and grateful that the community stepped up to make our year of work possible.

Becoming a 501c3

• At long last, it is time for Theater in Asylum to graduate from being fiscally sponsored to our own 501(c)3 non-profit organization. 
• Why do this? As you may have heard us grumble about, 2023 brought new rules to New York State arts funding (NYSCA), barring us from eligibility for a grant we had consistently won in years past. In addition, most grants (including DCLA grants) are only available to 501(c)3 nonprofits. As our company continues to grow, this fiscal transformation will restore and also open valuable funding streams for our work. 
• So what’s the big deal? Why do you need money to do this? We are a small team working on TIA part-time, and becoming a 501(c)3 is a considerable investment of time, resources, and money. In addition to needing a lawyer to file this transition for us, we’ll need to upgrade our bookkeeping to the rigorous levels required of nonprofits. In 2023, we began a transition to Quickbooks and paid people high enough to require 1099 filing for the first time. We hope to continue this in 2024 and add a bookkeeper to our team.

Grants for FY2024 we have applied for so far:

• ART/NY’s Small Theaters Grant ($5k–$10k across 2 years): Should hear in February 2024.
• BAC’s Brooklyn Arts Fund (up to $5k): Should hear in February 2024.
• Actors Equity Foundation: TBA grant value and when we will hear back.

Ticketing

• We are planning to offer tickets to the How to Survive the End of the World Cabaret on a sliding scale from $0-$35.
• $0 tickets will continue to be available to anyone who needs one, no questions asked.

2024 Payment Structure

• Annual Staff: We are planning to keep our contracted, annual staff stipends at $1,200 for all work during the year (annual staff does not receive project stipends). The annual staff annual staff will consist of 2 Artistic Directors, 1 Managing Director, 1 PR & Marketing Manager, 1 Cold Readings Coordinator, and one TBD financial role. We are considering the hire of a bookkeeper and phasing out the Grants and Fundraising Coordinator. Movement on this decision is paused until the 2024 fundraiser is complete.
• Cabaret Collaborators: Collaborators on the How to Survive the End of the World are budgeted to receive $100 stipends. Any grant money we win will primarily go towards this Cabaret and the collaborator stipends will most likely increase.
• Cold Readings: We plan to raise the facilitator fee to $75 per Cold Reading facilitation. Readers and listeners will continue to be welcomed on a volunteer basis.
  

 

We are so appreciative of our community, who has helped us organize our company, our budgets, and our work. Thank you for holding us accountable and always asking us to be better. More of our transparency commitments, as well as previous years’ reports, may be found on our Transparency page. We also always invite feedback and contact info may be found on ourCommunity page. Thank you all for making Theater in Asylum a vibrant community and fruitful for all involved.

With gratitude, 
Paul, Katie, and Kathryn
Theater in Asylum

Ps. We are currently fundraising for 2024! Please consider supporting us with a donation here.

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:

• All the organizations we supported in 2023
• Our favorite plays from 2023
• Our favorite books from 2023
• Our favorite music from 2023
• Our favorite films / TV from 2023
• Our 2024 plans and fundraiser

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!

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.

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.

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!

Each year, Theater in Asylum releases a list of plays, books, movies, and more that delighted us, challenged us, and changed us. Below is our first list, a crowd-sourced list of films and television shows our community loved in 2023.

Also, Theater in Asylum’s fundraiser is live! If you’re able, please consider helping us reach our goal with a donation. Thank you so much!!

Films

• 20 Days in Mariupol by Mstyslav Chernov
  
• Aftersun by Charlotte Wells
  
• American radical: The trials of Norman Finkelstein by David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier
  
• The Banshees of Inisherin by Martin McDonagh
  
• Barbie by Greta Gerwig
  
• Bottoms, directed by Emma Seligman, who co-wrote it with Rachel Sennott
  
• Dicks, the Musical by directed by Larry Charles, based on the off-Broadway musical Fucking Identical Twins by Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson
  
• Earth Mama, directed and written by Savanah Leaf
  
• Fire of Love by Sara Dosa
  
• Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan
  
• Saltburn by Emerald Fennell
  
• Theater Camp, directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman, screenplay by Gordon, Lieberman, Ben Platt and Noah Galvin
  

TV/Serial

• All The Light We Can Not See, directed by Shawn Levy and developed by Steven Knight
  
• Fellow Travelers by Ron Nyswaner
  
• How I Met Your Father by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger
  
• Jane the Virgin by Jennie Snyder Urman
  
• Lupin by George Kay and François Uzan
  
• Somebody Somewhere by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen
  
• Ted Lasso Season 3, Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly
  
  

Each year, Theater in Asylum releases a list of plays, books, movies, and more that delighted us, challenged us, and changed us. Below is our first list, a crowd-sourced list of music our community loved in 2023.

Also, Theater in Asylum’s fundraiser is live! If you’re able, please consider helping us reach our goal with a donation. Thank you so much!!

Albums

• Desire, I Want To Turn Into You by Caroline Polacheck
• Dura Mater by Spoon Benders
• Guts by Olivia Rodrigo
• The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
• Merrily We Roll Along Broadway revival soundtrack
• PARANOIA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE by Christine and the Queens
• The Record by boygenius
• Return to the Heart by Kevin Winebold
• The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan
• Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips

Songs

• “Choreomania” by Florence and the Machine
• “Here Comes the Rain Again” by the Eurythmics
• “The Loneliest Time” by Carly Rae Jepsen & Rufus Wainwright
• “Mastermind” by Taylor Swift
• "The stranger cared about me" Jawaher Shofani
• "Running up that hill" cover by First Aid Kit (originally by Kate Bush)
• “Tell Her” by Bruno Major
• "This is Not Over Yet" from Parade, sung by Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond