Our 2023 Fundraiser is live!

Dearest Supporters,

Thank you for making Theater in Asylum a vibrant space for new, provocative, and joyful research- and ensemble-driven theater! We are so deeply grateful to our community that makes this all possible. We have big dreams for next year, and we hope you will consider donating to our 2023 season, our 13th year of work. You’ll be supporting a new production, increased artist pay, free tickets at every show, Cold Readings, and a more sustainable structure for the company.

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Looking Back, Reaching ForwardLast year, your support made it possible for us to grow and develop in tremendous ways. In 2022, we:

• Produced a cabaret of new work, with 37 artists, 120 in-person attendees, and over 600 online streamers.
• Held a week-long workshop of The FTP Show, developing the script and getting high quality photos and videos.
• Implemented an annual staff, with 7 paid team members to keep TIA running between projects, allowing us to plan bigger and more sustainably for 2023.
• Paid 56 artists for their work, including Cabaret artists for the first time, as well as increasing production stipends.
• Held 18 Cold Readings, amplifying 18 organizations doing good work in the process.
• Won the most funding from grants in our Company’s history, making 2021’s mission and systems revision a smashing success!
• Maintained a free ticket option at every public event.
  

Photos by Theater in Asylum and Shubhra Mishra

With your support, we can build on our growth in 2022 to reach new heights in 2023. For our 13th year, we’re looking to :

• Stage the premier of The FTP Show in a 3-week, 12 performance run, our longest ever!
• Host 9 Cold Readings, with a mix of online and in-person gatherings.
• Pay over 30 artists at increased levels, stepping up our business structure and issuing tax documents for the first time.
• Maintaining a free-ticket option at all public events, a commitment we have kept since 2016.
• Reincorporate the company as an LLC, solidifying our ability to pay higher stipends.
  

Photo by LPC Photography

Our Focus for 2023: The FTP Show

What’s it All About?
The FTP Show (working title) explores the story of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), a New Deal program that allocated federal tax dollars to directly employ thousands of theater artists from 1953. Led by Hallie Flanagan, the project thrived across the country, and approximately one quarter of all Americans saw an FTP production.

Our show focuses on six artists, following them from the FTP’s inception in 1935 through its demise in 1939, with flashes forward to the fights at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in the 60’s and 90’s to the COVID-19 pandemic and today. Our characters represent, in Hallie Flanagan's words, the "ten thousand anonymous men and women who did the work, the somebodies who believed" in the Federal Theatre Project and made it exist.

The piece will showcase the major theatrical successes of the FTP, the tougher internal moments, and the external pressures of congressional censorship and accusations of Communism. Our characters fracture in debate as the play jumps forward in time. Over 80 years later a group of artists on Zoom, some benefitting from Covid Relief grants, others not, wrestle with the same questions of public funding and art’s value in society.

We’ve been developing this show for over a year through research, readings of FTP plays, and a workshop this past summer. This production will be our biggest to date with a three-week run at the Jalopy Theater in Summer 2023. With this long of a run, we have the chance to have our work seen by more people and let the idea of what a present-day federally-funded theater could be catch fire.

Financially, we are prioritizing people with this production. Artists stipends will increase by over 300% from our past productions, allowing our artists to concentrate on the process and less on making ends meet. Visit the fundraising page to see a detailed chart of our expenses for 2023.

Other Happenings in 2023: Continuing Cold Readings

Since 2015, Theater in Asylum has gathered friends and fans to read and discuss great plays (152 so far!). Wednesday nights have become a cherished place not only for play reading but for processing these wild times. We plan to continue a combination of online and in-person readings, as well as invite guest facilitators to bring new plays and ideas to the group. Part theater-literacy, part social-event, Cold Readings continue to be a bright spot in Theater in Asylum’s work.

Photos by Ryan Prado, Shubhra Mishra and Theater in Asylum

Our Ask and Our Gratitude

If you are in a position to donate, we humbly ask for your support of Theater in Asylum’s work in 2023. From $5 to $5000, any amount is helpful and will make a difference! Plus, as an extra thank you for donating, we have a number of lovely perks for you to choose from!

DONATE

I can’t donate, but I want to help. What else can I do?
Have a talent you can lend us? Become a perk partner and donate your time and talents to our donors. Email [email protected]

Have social media or a blog? Write about us and encourage your friends to chip in to our fundraiser!

We are so grateful for all that’s been made possible these past 12 years, and we look ahead to 2023 with eagerness and hope.

We have ambitious plans for 2023. Thank you, thank you for your donations that make these plans possible.

We wish you and yours safety, good health, and a bright new year.

Paul, Katie, Kathryn, Charlotte, Al, Melissa, Brea, and Adin