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Occupy Prescott

1/12/2021

Dear friends,

The world’s stakes are so terribly high right now. Last week’s attack on the Capitol Building, and by extension our Democracy, was terrifying and revealing. We have so much work to do if we are to defeat white supremacy and the brutality of capitalism.

Change (on seemingly every front) is needed right now. How do we unify in the fight for a better world? How do we achieve consensus and can we afford to wait that long?

Next fall, 10 years after the Occupy Wall Street, Theater in Asylum will produce Andy Boyd’s Occupy Prescott. The play follows five very different activists as they try to formulate their demands and reach consensus in how to achieve a more equitable country. With all that’s happening today, the questions, dilemmas, and dueling priorities in this play are precisely what we need now.

If you are in a position to, please consider supporting our 2021 Season so that we may bring Occupy Prescott, and the rest of our programs, to our community.

SUPPORT OUR 2021 SEASON

Thank you so much.

Love,
Paul, Katie, Kathryn, and Hilarie

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You hungry?

1/5/2021

Dear friends,

Hope your year is off to a good start! We are thrilled that our first Cold Reading of the year is tomorrow and that things are moving in 2021! Fingers crossed for a happy news cycle this week after today’s runoff in Georgia and tomorrow’s electoral vote count in Washington… Wooo!

We have lots of tasty treats to celebrate with (or stress-eat!) and it all supports a good cause! Our 2021 Season fundraiser is underway and we’ve already raised over a third of our goal!

See below for some of the delicious perks to our fundraiser.

Love,
Paul, Katie, Kathryn, and Hilarie

SEE MORE & DONATE

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Theater in Asylum's 2020 Year in Review

12/31/2020

2020 Major Events

The Electability Cabaret
Willie Johnson’s Hephaestus
36 Cold Readings
The Debates 2020
We began (and are continuing) a process to revise our mission statement
Celebrated our 10 Year Anniversary through articles, videos, a magazine, and an online retrospective.
We joined a group of independent theater companies to go through and work together to implement the We See You White American Theater demands.
We began Anti-racism training with The League of Independent Theater

2020 Timeline

January 14: We host a Debate Watch Party, with a Political Analysis meeting the following night.
January 22: Our first Cold Reading of the year. We read Sarah Treem’s A Feminine Ending.
January 31: We host a Monologue Party at Pete’s Candy Store to raise money for Hephaestus.
February 7: We host the first of THREE Debate Watch Parties in February. We host one Political Analysis meeting to parse through all three.
February 8: We produce The Electability Cabaret.
February 13: Our second Cold Reading of the year. We read Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep.
March 11-13: We produce Willie Johnson’s Hephaestus.
March 16: We host an online Debate Watch Party of the Primary Race’s final debate.
March 25: Our third Cold Reading of the year (Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros) is held online. From here on out, Cold Readings are held weekly on Zoom. We took off only four weeks from here until the end of 2020.
March 28: The New York Primary is rescheduled due to the global pandemic. TIA initially cancels and then reschedules The Debates 2020 to be presented online in June.
June 1: We release a statement in solidarity with the Uprising for Black Lives and commit to interrogating our role in this country’s system of white supremacy.
June 8: TIA leadership attends TCG’s National Conference Session on Anti-Racism.
June 21: We present The Debates 2020 live on Zoom in anticipation of New York’s primary two days later.
September 25: Theater in Asylum celebrates its 10-year-anniversary.
October 25: TIA leadership joins other small-theater leaders on Zoom (the beginning of a multi-month process) to go through and work together to implement the We See You White American Theater demands.
October 28: We host a virtual watch party and discussion of Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me in anticipation of the presidential election.
November 3: The presidential election. Five days later, Joe Biden is declared the next President, while Kamala Harris is declared the next Vice President, becoming the first woman and person of color to hold the office.
December 5: TIA leadership begins “The Big Learn,” an anti-racism course organized by the League of Independent Theater, Indie Theater Fund, and New York Innovative Theatre Awards.

For our last in-person Cold Reading of 2020, we read Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep

2020 by the Numbers

Productions: 2
Cabarets: 1
Cold Readings: 36
Rehearsal hours: 96
Company Meetings: 74
Artists Paid: 42
2020 spending: Personnel: $4,450 (44%); Space: $2,280 (23%); Production: $1,764 (17%); Admin: $1,019 (10%); Development: $600 (6%)

Crowdsourcing from our community, our favorite Cold Readings

What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck (our movie night of the show streaming on Amazon)
Wine in the Wilderness by Alice Childress
Hir by Taylor Mac
One-third of a Nation by Arthur Arent and The Federal Theatre Project
Passage by Christopher Chen

Once the pandemic shut down New York, we moved our Cold Reading series online. The gatherings quickly grew in size and we accelerated the series to meet weekly instead of monthly.

Crowd-sourced from our community, our 2020 favorite...

The Uprising for Black Lives inspired us all and demanded our attention, self-reflection, and action.

Crowd-sourced from our community, the last in-person theater we saw

Cocktail Party: A Social Experiment
Hamlet at St. Ann’s Warehouse
Henry V
Theater in Asylum’s Hephaestus
Inheritance by Matthew Lopez
Bread and Puppet’s Insurrection-Resurrection Service Circus
Jagged Little Pill on Broadway
Girl from the North Country on Broadway
Medea at BAM
Mabou Mines’ MUD
Next to Normal at Riverside Theater Works
The Play That Goes Wrong on Broadway
Sanctuary City by Martyna Majok at Lucille Lortel
The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes at the Public
Tumacho at Connelly Theater

The incredible cast of Hephaestus, performed the piece just days before New York shut down. Production photos by Ryan Prado, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center/Rough Draft Festival.

Crowd-sourced from our community, what are we looking forward to in 2021?

Dance floors
Starting college
Hopefully, a return to New York!
More family time (fingers crossed)
Seeing people without masks and hearing them wonder how weird it is not to wear one
Live theater hopefully!
The end of the pandemic (fingers crossed). And the expansion of the federal govt. under a Biden administration.
A vaccine!!! And maybe then... dare I say?... travel?
Hugging people
Springtime
Not having Donald Trump in the White House.
GOING TO ITALY AND BEYOND
A vaccine!
Hopefully the general public caring a little bit more about one another. Less selfishness.
Vaccines!!! and a new presidential administration
Fighting for a Green New Deal! electing a new mayor!
Live theater
A real hug
My best year yet!

Zac Porter portrayed the Green New Deal Herself at The Debates 2020

Nadia Diamond portrayed Joe Biden at The Debates 2020

Our Plans for 2021

Continue Cold Readings, weekly until the pandemic ends, TBD after that. In 2021 we will focus on reading more plays by writers of color, bringing in more guest facilitators, and partnering with other companies that hold readings.
Create and produce The Debates 2021*, centering on NYC’s upcoming primary elections
Produce Andy’s Boyd’s Occupy Prescott*
Present a cabaret* for artists in our community to experiment with new work
Complete a revision of our mission statement and company values
Continue working to understand our role in oppressive systems, while striving to counteract them with anti-racist and anti-oppression practices.

* We are planning our two productions and one cabaret to have multiple presentation options. Outdoors? Online? We are keeping safety top-of-mind, with multiple contingency plans and flexibility as the health situation in NYC changes.

SUPPORT OUR 2021 SEASON

Amanda Ghosh was our “Horse Race Announcer,” looking ahead to the upcoming election in The Debates 2020

Thank you so much for all your support in 2020. The year was wild and difficult but there were still plays and people and memories that we are so grateful for. May all of us have a healthy and happy new year!

Theater in Asylum's leadership team. Upper left: Kathryn Appleton, Managing Director. Upper right: Paul Bedard, Co-Artistic Director. Lower left: Hilarie Spangler, Community Engagement Manager. Lower right: Katie Palmer, Co-Artistic Director.

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Theater in Asylum (TIA) is a New York-based theater company founded in 2010 to challenge and empower our community. TIA joyfully pursues a rigorous research and an ensemble-driven approach to theater-making. We create performances to investigate our past, interpret our present, and imagine our future. We prize space to process, space to question—asylum—for ourselves and our community. Core programs include original productions; themed cabarets to present new work from our community; and Cold Readings to read and discuss published plays.

Copyright © 2021 THEATER IN ASYLUM. All rights reserved.

Occupy Prescott

You hungry?

Theater in Asylum's 2020 Year in Review

2020 Major Events

2020 Timeline

2020 by the Numbers

Crowdsourcing from our community, our favorite Cold Readings

Crowd-sourced from our community, our 2020 favorite...

Crowd-sourced from our community, the last in-person theater we saw

Crowd-sourced from our community, what are we looking forward to in 2021?

Our Plans for 2021

Thank you so much for all your support in 2020. The year was wild and difficult but there were still plays and people and memories that we are so grateful for. May all of us have a healthy and happy new year!

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