Cold Reading:
​Vaclav Havel Night!
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
7-10 PM ET
In Person & On Zoom

Join us this month as we explore the work of Vaclav Havel. One of the most fascinating figures in modern theatre, Havel was a playwright, poet, political prisoner, and eventually president of the Czech Republic for 13 years. RSVP here to join us in person in Manhattan or virtually on Zoom!


SUPPORTING GOOD WORK
At each Cold Reading, we ask attendees to consider supporting an organization doing good work. Last time we gathered, we pointed folks to The Trans Justice Funding Project. The TJFP moves money to trans-led grassroots groups and projects with trust and no strings attached. They center trans justice in the US and US territories and honor and amplify the ways communities organize, create and shift culture, commit their love and care, and fight like hell for trans liberation. Donate here.

​It CAN Happen Here!
By Melody Brooks, Katrin Hilbe, Tess Howsam, Daniel Jacobs and Susan Quinn
Directed by Katrin Hilbe
March 6-30
Culture Lab LIC
5-25 46th Avenue, Long Island City, NY

GET TICKETS
​
Fans of The Nobodies Who Were Everybody will love It CAN Happen Here!, a multi-media experience from New Perspectives Theatre Company and Culture Lab LIC that weaves together three strands of storyline: the achievements of the Federal Theatre Project, which employed tens of thousands of artists from every demographic working in every theatrical genre and which brought performances into every corner of the U.S.; the ground-breaking work of its fearless leader, Hallie Flanagan, whose vision shaped the story-telling and aesthetics of the most impactful productions; and the political consequences, which encompassed the breaking of racial and social barriers and earned the disapprobation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), whose legacy of attacks on Theatre and the Arts continue to this day.


Ground-breaking artists from NPTC's and CLLIC's creative teams are collaborating with director Katrin Hilbe to take the audience on a fast paced and stylized journey from HUAC hearings to Federal Theatre performances, from Hallie's home life to labor strikes, from the beginnings of an impossible undertaking to a triumphant success to a devastating loss. Learn more about the production and get tickets here! The TIA team will be attending March 23rd performance — we hope to see some of you there!

Dear friends,

We hope your 2025 is going as well as it can so far, and that you're hopeful for the work ahead. TIA has a Cold Reading of Gertrude Stein shorts coming up on February 19 (details and RSVP here). But February brings lots of other exciting work as well. Check out some of what our friends are up to!

Cheers,
Theater in Asylum

Our friend Ian has a show at the Starr!
SLAMDANCE GARAGE
​FEBRUARY 5 - 22, 2025
At The Bushwick Starr: 419 Eldert Street, Brooklyn
Wednesdays - Saturdays at 7:30pmCreated and performed by Ian Andrew Askew
Produced in association with ¡Oye! Group

SLAMDANCE garage is a solo performance on punk and blackness. Nestled somewhere between performance art, a rock show, and an one-act opera, Ian Andrew Askew hurdles through an hour of music, movement, and text celebrating the absurdity of explaining Black people’s participation in their own culture.

SLAMDANCE garage borrows text from Nina Simone, Audre Lorde, Drexciya, and other luminaries, reharmonizing their words to the sounds of drums, distorted vocals, and the blaring resonance of a custom-one string bass. Inspired by the Malawian babatoni, Mississippi diddley-bow, and the Afro-Brazilian berimbau, the handmade instrument (nearly the same length as its player) is an homage to throughlines of musical technology that weave through the African diaspora.

The Brick presents
​The Van Gogh Shogh
Written and performed by Donna Oblongata
Directed by Francesca Montanile-Lyons
at The Brick Theater — 579 Metropolitan Ave
February 6-9, 2025 at 8PM
Running Time: 75 minutes
Free show! Bring cash!

One part deranged “Sip ‘n Paint”, one part karaoke night and one part Sotheby’s. In The Van Gogh Shogh, solo performer and clown Donna Oblongata uses the lens of Vincent Van Gogh’s life and legacy to ask urgent questions about the nature of art, success, reproduction, and the potential meaning(lessness) of a creative life. 
Find them: @donnaoblongata 
Content warnings: mentions of suicide, alcohol
Photo credit: Josh Yoder

NO RESERVATION
conceived, written, & directed by Paul and Katie's beloved acting teacher Elizabeth Hess
February 6-23 at La MaMa

Diverse global goddesses crash a dinner party celebrating false gods.
The goddesses have been underground for centuries but now rise up, sensing the urgency of their presence ‘at the table.’ This multidisciplinary performance piece moves forward from second wave feminist artists who took on the patriarchy through works like The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper by Mary Beth Edelson and the dinner scene in Top Girls by Caryl Churchill.

The Loneliness of Either, Or; A Requiem for Joan of Arc
by Ali Dineen and Boxcutter Collective
Thursday, February 13th at 7 PM
Ars Nova
511 W. 54th Street, New York, NY

Friends of TIA Ali Dineen and Boxcutter Collective take the Ars Nova stage this February with a gorgeous new work that delves into the multi-faceted story of Joan of Arc as well as the composer’s own life. Where should we turn when our heroes and gods betray us? Blending gender, prophecy, and faith, The Loneliness of Either, Or: A Requiem for Joan of Arc is a musical meditation with original folk music for piano and chamber choir performed alongside an object theater puppet show that weaves history, politics, and personal experience.

The Boxcutters are putting on a puppet slam!
On Saturday February 22nd at The Fabulous Jalopy Theater and School of Music (315 Columbia Street Brooklyn) Boxcutter Collective will present a Puppet Cabaret! Doors at 7:30 SHOW at 8pm. We think you won’t want to miss this breathtaking line-up including:  Ray The Bimbo Clown, Marlee Miller, Emmanuel Elpenord, Great Small Works and Boxcutter Collective!

The Skeleton Rep(resents)
Georgia and the Butch
Adapted from Maria Chabot - Georgia O'Keeffe: Correspondence, 1941-1949
Adaptation by Carolyn Gage
Directed by Andrew Coopman
February 25th - March 12th
The Tank
312 West 36th Street, New York, NY

Friend of TIA Robert Gonyo sound designs a new play adapted from the letters between famous artist Georgia O’Keeffe and advocate for Native American arts and rancher Maria Chabot during their nine-year intimate relationship, from 1941 to 1949. This production is intended to highlight an intense and controversial intimacy that has been minimized, mischaracterized, or written out of Georgia’s history. 

It is a relationship between an older, gender-non-conforming, fiercely independent artist and a young lesbian butch who was experiencing profound confusion about her identity and about her place in the world. Whatever imbalances and dysfunction there may have been between these incredibly strong-willed and visionary women, one cannot dispute that the camping trips with Maria resulted in some of Georgia’s most iconic landscapes, and that the house and garden at Abiquiu, designed and built by Maria, stand as a stunning testament to a young lesbian’s all-consuming devotion to her muse.

CRANKIES TAKE NEW YORK!
Feb 28th and March 1st at Flushing Town Hall Theater: 137-35 Northern Blvd, Flushing, NY 11354
General Admission: $20 Adults / $15 Members, Seniors, & Students w/ID
Children are welcome and this performance is geared towards adults. Boxcutter Collective will perform 2 brand new crankie shows!!
​
“Witches, Women and Witchcraft: The (Mostly) True Cranky of a Cranky Old Hag.” A brief history of the medieval witch hunts, as told by…witches! With their reproductive healthcare skills, and a team of singing bullfrogs, is it possible that witches are just what we need to defeat the imperialist capitalist patriarchy? AND “Haunted Lighthouse” A collaboration with Charming Disaster –  a goth-folk musical duo based in Brooklyn, formed in 2012 by Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris. Inspired by the macabre humor of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, the murder ballads of the Americana tradition, and the dramatic flair of the cabaret, they write songs that tell stories about death, crime, myth, magic, folklore, science, and the occult. Boxcutter Collective is very excited to collaborate with these weirdos!
​
Get Your Tickets for the 2/28 Show Here
Get Your Tickets for the 3/1 Workshop/Performance Here

​Purpose
​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 2024. 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 2024. For a non-financial review, please see our 2024 Year in Review.

Big Picture Takeaways of Theater in Asylum’s 2024 Finances

• We projected to spend $16,372, but actually spent just under $15,895.
• We projected to earn just under $16,845, but we actually earned closer to $22,599.
• We netted a profit of $6,704.
• This year’s fundraising looked different than previous years. We did not launch an official 2025 fundraiser, which would have earmarked many donations specifically for 2025’s work. The main reason for not holding a major 2025 fundraising campaign is that our 501c3 transformation is taking significantly longer than expected. We hope to have this complete in 2025, at which point we will launch a “We did it!” and a 15th anniversary fundraiser. 
• Even without a large-scale crowd-funding campaign, many of our donors gave to our “general support” this year. We are not sure if these donors will support a mid-2025 fundraiser and thus, the donations we received at the end of 2024 likely inflate our overall revenue for 2024 and will deflate our earnings in 2025.

2024 Major Projects & Expenses

• Book Club: We held three bookclub meetings in 2024. The first for Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit; the second for Doppelganger by Naomi Klein; and a third where participants read adaptations of the Faust myth of their choosing. We always offer to purchase the book for anyone who needs help acquiring it. This year no one requested a book, and therefore this program cost $0.
• The FAUST/HOPE August Workshop: TIA gathered a small group of performers for one week to create as much material as possible from our research on Faust. We then presented about 30 minutes of material to a small, invited audience. We paid 5 performers $100 stipends.* There were no props or costumes, and the space was donated. Paul, Katie, and Kathryn donated the food and drinks for the audience reception. The total cost of this project was $500. We did not charge admission or ask for donations at the showing, so therefore the revenue was $0.
• The How to Survive the End of the World Cabaret: This night of new works by both Theater in Asylum and four invited groups cost $5,525. $3,150 was spent on people, $445 on space, and $1,930 on production costs. Artist stipends were $175 each*. Tickets were sold on a sliding scale $0-$35. We brought in $885 in ticket sales. We won a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC) for $5,000 ($4,600 after processing fees) to be applied to this cabaret. Total revenue for the project was $5,485, resulting in a $40 loss. Our ticket revenue accounted for 16% of the overall project’s cost. For the audience of 116 (across both nights) to have paid for this project in its entirety, the tickets would have needed to be $48 each. Instead, and with support from venues and the BAC, we are proud to have offered a sliding scale and free tickets to anyone who needed one. 31 people opted for the free ticket.
• Cold Readings: We hosted 9 readings this year with about 90 people attending, averaging 10 people per reading. The readings were held in-person and online throughout the year. Six of the readings were facilitated by Theater in Asylum’s annual staff, and three were facilitated by guest facilitators. Guest facilitators and the pianist for the musical were each paid a $75 stipend*. For in-person Cold Readings, light refreshments are provided, costing $103 this year. Seven readings occurred on Zoom and two were hybrid. The in-person space for the hybrid readings was donated. The total cost of this program was $403. Because we direct attendees to donate to other groups doing good work (and not to TIA), the revenue for this program was $0.
• Admin: We have a number of monthly subscriptions including: ART/NY ($50), Fractured Atlas ($240), Zoom ($196), Google ($545), Quickbooks ($419), Web Hosting ($37, we pay on multi-year cycles and will owe significantly more in 2025), CubeSmart Storage ($237), Brass Taxes ($807, includes tax filings), Philadelphia Insurance ($908, expensed this year to the Cabaret), and Lawyers Alliance ($575) as part of our 501c3 transformation process.

*Theater in Asylum’s annual staff do not receive per-project stipends

How We Paid People in 2024
Annual Staff
The annually contracted staff listed below each received $100/month and did not receive project stipends.

• Artistic Directors (2)**
• Managing Director (1)**
• PR & Marketing Manager (1)
• Cold Readings Coordinator (1)

**Because of Theater in Asylum’s current legal framework, payment to Paul, Katie, and Kathryn (the three partners of the LLC) are paid the company’s “profit.” Their pay, legally, is designated as “profit disbursement.” Although not legally required, all profits beyond the $100/month ($1,200 total each)  administrative stipend amount were re-invested into the company.

The How to Survive the End of the World Cabaret 

• Collaborators (18): $175 stipends. 
• This was revised upwards from $100 once we determined fewer collaborators would be hired, and we received the full $5,000 grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council.

Cold Readings

• Guest facilitators (3): $75 per facilitation
• Guest Pianist (1): $75
• Readers and listeners are welcomed on a volunteer basis.

The FAUST/HOPE August Workshop

• Collaborators (5): $100 stipends.

Grants
We had a good year with grants!

This past year we applied to:

• The Actors Equity Foundation ($250): We won this grant. 
• BAC’s Brooklyn Arts Fund (up to $5,000): We won this grant at the full $5,000 level. A renewed victory after losing it in 2023.
• ART/NY’s Small Theaters Grant ($5k-$10k across 2 years): We lost this grant.
• IndieSpace’s “Pay Your People” Grant ($1,000): After many years of trying, we finally won this lottery grant!

Learnings and observations for future grant applications:

• Due to a change at the state level (NYSCA), we continue to be ineligible for ART/NY’s Creative Opportunity Grant, a grant we had a good track record of winning before this eligibility change. We hope to be eligible again once our 501(c)3 transformation is complete.
• Brooklyn Arts Council: After multiple grant cycles, we recognize a trend wherein our proposals that spread grant money thinly across many artists (our cabarets) are more successful than proposals where grant money is more deeply invested in fewer artists (our productions).
• After multiple years of receiving negative feedback on our video work samples, we decided to change tactics. Sitting on grant panels and looking at the kinds of applications that won, we learned that it is not any kind of sampling of work that tends to do well, but fully-produced short documentaries about the process instead. Winning applications had music, transitions, and multiple camera angles. In 2023, we created one of these process documentaries for The Nobodies Who Were Everybody and included it in our winning 2024 BAC application.

Fundraising
Fundraising takes a lot of time, but we are lucky to have an incredible group of donors who continue to support our journey! 

• Our 2024 fundraiser (running December 2023-January 2024) yielded $11,822 before fees. This was 107% of our $11,000 goal. There were 83 donors with an average donation of $142 and a median donation of $82.
• General support donations throughout the year yielded $5,067 before fees. There were 69 donors with an average donation of $79 and a median donation of $27. This general support fund includes three superstar monthly donors.

While we normally launch a fundraiser December-January in anticipation of each new year, we did not hold a December 2024-January 2025 fundraiser. We had hoped that our 501(c)3 transformation would be complete by now and that the fundraiser could have celebrated this milestone. We believe some folks who normally donate to that fundraiser donated to our general support fund instead. This may lower the amount we can raise in 2025 if we launch a mid-year fundraising campaign, because many of our donors appear to be on an end-of-year donation cycle.

Ticketing
116 attended The How to Survive the End of the World Cabaret in person, with tickets on a sliding scale $0-$35.

• 8 people paid the “Hero” price at $35/ticket.
• 21 people paid the “General” price at $25/ticket.
• 56 people paid the “Student/Artist/Low-income” price at $15/ticket.
• 31 people paid $0 in advance and donated what they could at the door.* This resulted in $60, or an average $1.94/ticket.

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

Revenue Take-Away: Individual Donors Continue to be Critical to our Work
Individual donations are by far our biggest income-source (70.6%). We are incredibly lucky that this is even possible, as we have a community that is both generous and able to donate a combined $15,944. Ticketing accounted for 3.9% of our income and grants accounted for 25.5% of our income this year. 

We are deeply grateful for all these avenues of financial support, and we acknowledge and want to praise two incredible institutions without whom we would not be able to make our work. 

The Episcopal Actors' Guild (EAG), where Paul works, allows us free use of their space as a perk of Paul’s employment. This saved us rehearsal costs for both the August FAUST/HOPE Workshop and the Cabaret. We also frequently host our Cold Readings at EAG, another huge saving for us.

The Jalopy Theatre is another tremendous supporter, working with us to provide space that is within our budget. The amount we pay them in rental fees is, shall we say, below market. This is a true feat of generosity. Jalopy also lends us incredible trust with their lighting system, auxiliary spaces, and ticketing.

EAG and Jalopy are those rare spaces in New York City where weird stuff is still happening because artists can actually afford to get in the door and make work. Read any arts publication these days, and you’ll see that the arts venue landscape is grim. Despite this, there are still true heroes tucked away in Red Hook and above a little Midtown church finding ways to truly support artists, and generously house groups like Theater in Asylum.

Detailed Numbers

Looking to 2025
Major Projects

• Becoming a 501(c)3. Somehow, sometime in 2025, this process will complete. We believe we are mere days away from being ready to submit all our documents to the IRS. Once they have it, approval should come within six months.
• Celebrating our 15th anniversary! Once we become a 501(c)3, we plan to host a party, inaugurate our board, and launch a celebratory fundraiser.
• Continue developing Faust. We are planning a reading (or two) and will also have another workshop to move this piece closer to production.
• A cabaret in the fall. Pending grant funding, we plan to host a cabaret this fall, commissioning artists to present new work around a unified theme.
• Cold Readings will continue on a slightly smaller scale, with a budget for three guest facilitators and one pianist for the musical.

Grants for FY2025 that we have applied for so far:

• ART/NY’s Small Theaters Grant ($5,000–$10,000 across 2 years): Should hear back about this grant in February 2025.
• ART/NY’s Creative Opportunity Grant (up to $5,000): We applied for this grant believing that our 501(c)3 process would be complete by now. Unfortunately, because that process is not complete, we are now ineligible for this grant. We contacted ART/NY to remove ourselves from consideration.
• BAC’s Brooklyn Arts Fund (up to $5,000): Should hear back by May 2025.
• Puffin Foundation (up to $3,500): Should hear back by June 2025.

Ticketing

• We are planning to offer tickets to the fall cabaret on a sliding scale from $0-$35.
• $0 tickets will continue to be available to anyone who needs one, no questions asked.
• Cold Readings will continue to be free for all attendees.

2025 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 will consist of two Artistic Directors***, a Managing Director***, and PR & Marketing Manager. We are also looking  to hire a bookkeeper because our books will be under more scrutiny when we become a 501(c)3. Marcella, our incredible Cold Readings Coordinator for 2024, is moving on to new projects while settling herself in her new home in Cleveland. She will sadly not be continuing as the Cold Readings Coordinator. We thank her for all her hard work in 2024! With fewer Cold Readings planned in 2025, Paul and Katie are planning to helm the program this year.
• Cabaret Collaborators: Collaborator stipends for the fall cabaret are dependent on grant funding, but we aim to match 2024 levels at $175 per person.
• Faust Workshop: We are unsure yet how long this workshop needs to be and how many collaborators will be needed for it. But we aim for stipends to be at least $100.
• Cold Readings: Facilitators will continue to receive $75 per Cold Reading facilitation. Readers and listeners will continue to be welcomed on a volunteer basis.

***With Theater in Asylum’s current legal framework, payment to Paul, Katie, and Kathryn (the three partners of the LLC) are paid the company’s “profit.” We align the profit disbursement to match the stipend amount for the annual staff.

Thank you
We are so grateful to this incredible community that continues to make so much possible. 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 our Community 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. Please consider donating to Theater in Asylum!

Dear Friends, 

Today is a day that will be filled with complicated emotions. Some of us will be compulsively tuned in to the news, while others will be studiously avoiding it. Whatever your tactic is, we hope you’ll keep your chin up and your heart open. Today will surely influence the future, but it will not be the future’s sole determinant. We, too, have the potential to influence the future. 

From our Faust research, a quote from Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark: “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When we recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes—you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can known beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.” 

Stay strong. Say no to Mephistopheles and yes to your neighbors. 

We’ve got work to do. 

— Theater in Asylum

Ps. Huge thanks to everyone who came out to our holiday party earlier this month (yes, in January)! We had a great time catching up with our friends in the TIA community, chatting about life updates and upcoming projects, and looking ahead to the new year.