Theater in Asylum presents a Cold Reading of

​Christopher Marlowe’s 
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus
aka
DOCTOR FAUSTUS

​Wednesday, January 22, 2025
7-10 PM ET
Hybrid! In person in Manhattan and on Zoom

Join us on January 22nd to read one of history’s greatest tales of ambition and demonology. Meet the scholar Faustus who conjures and subsequently enters into contract with the devil Mephistopheles. Journeys and cruelties ensue with the likes of Helen of Troy, the Pope, and – of course – Lucifer himself. It’s 2025 in America. What better time to question: “Is not all power on earth bestowed on us?” RSVP for more details!

What is a Cold Reading?
For 10 years, Theater in Asylum has been gathering actors and non-actors to read (cold and without rehearsal) great plays. Following each reading, we discuss it, asking questions like, “What stood out?” “What is the play asking us?" and “How would you direct it here and now?” It’s something of a book club, but we read the entire book together on the spot. No expertise or great acting is needed. The stakes are low (there’s no possibility of extension) and high (this is opening and closing night!). The aim is to enjoy reading and discussing theater, and to build confidence in it.

How does it work?
Each Cold Reading begins with introductions so we know who’s in the room. We always read Theater in Asylum’s Community Agreements. Then a facilitator (the only one who needs to know the play beforehand) gives us a brief introduction to the play including who wrote it, when, where, and if there is any critical context we should have before diving in. Some plays have an intermission. Finally, we discuss it. Here’s the rough schedule of a Cold Reading:

• 7pm. Introduce the people in the room and read Community Agreements
• 7:15pm. Facilitator introduces the play.
• 7:25pm. Quick break to use the bathroom & refill your glass
• 7:30pm. A toast to Dionysus, then read the play!
• Some plays have an intermission.
• Quick break after the reading.
• 9:30pm ish. Discussion.
• 10pm. Goodbye!

​Can I read?
Yes! We try to shuffle roles around, prioritizing new folks.

Do I have to read?
No! You’re welcome to just listen.

Do I need to be an actor?
No!

Do I need to read/know the play beforehand?
No! Everyone is reading it “cold.”

Are there rehearsals?
No!

Does it cost money? Is this a paid gig?
No and no!

Do I have to buy the script?
No! We’ll give you one. If you’re able, we encourage everyone to bring a device (phone, tablet, laptop, etc.) to read the script.

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!

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.

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.

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.

​

• 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

​

• 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)

​

• 2023
• 2022
• 2021
• 2020
• A review of our first 10 years (2010-2019)
• More about Theater in Asylum

​

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!

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 THEATER our community loved in 2024.


Thank you to the community who made and loved art this year! Please consider donating to Theater in Asylum so we can keep it going in 2025.

• The Ally at Public Theater
• The Blood Quilt by Katori Hall at Lincoln Center Theater
• Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage at Virginia Stage Company
• Boys on the Verge of Tears by Sam Grabiner at Soho Theater
• Burnout Paradise at St Ann’s
• Cable Street at Southwark Playhouse
• Cats: The Jellicle at PAC

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 MEDIUM our community loved in 2024.


Thank you to the community who made and loved art this year! Please consider donating to Theater in Asylum so we can keep it going in 2025.

Fiction

• The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
  
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Michael Katz
  
• The Fraud by Zadie Smith
  
• The Guest by Emma Cline
  
• A History of Burning by Janika Oza
  
• Holy Rosenbergs by Ryan Craig
  
• James by Percival Everett
  
• The Light Pirate by Lilly Brooks-Dalton
  
• North Woods by Daniel Mason
  
• Orbittal by Samantha Harvey
  
• The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
  
• A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
  
• Women Talking by Miriam Toews
  
• Yellowface by R.F. Kuang 
  
• Between Earth and Sky Trilogy by Rebecca Roanhorse
  

Non-fiction

• The Devil’s Contract: The History of The Faustian Bargain by Ed Simon
  
• Die Hot with A Vengeance: Essays on Vanity by Sable Yong
  
• Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein: orbital by Samantha Harvey
  
• The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Janet Mills & Don Miguel Ruiz
  
• God, Human, Animal, Machine by Meghan O'Gieblyn
  
• Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
  
• The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
  
• Knife by Salman Rushdie
  
• The Light Eaters by Zoe Schlanger
  
• The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  
• Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears by Micheal Schulman
  
• Performance, Medicine, and the Human by Alex Mermikides
  
• Queen Victoria Goes to the Theatre by George Rowell
  
• Remembering Cable Street: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in British Society by Tony Kushner
  
• Safe in a Midwife's Hands: Birthing Traditions from Africa to the American South by Linda Janet Holmes
  
• Takeover, Hitler's Final Rise to Power by Timothy Ryback
  
• Uncut: A Cultural Analysis of the Foreskin by Jonathan A. Allan
  
• Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler
  

Poetry

• The Illiad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
  
• Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Walter Arndt
  
• You can be the Last Leaf, selected poems by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat