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Dear Friend,
 

Sixteen years ago, a small group of upstart theater kids had a bold thought. What if we celebrated collaboration and process above all else? What if we valued every voice in the room, rather than just one or two people at the top?
 

Pursuing that dream has yielded vivid, unexpected plays that deeply reflect the entire ensemble of artists who make them. Again and again we’ve turned unruly ideas into exciting theatrical events and flexed new creative muscles in the process.
 

This expansive, deliberate approach to theater has never been easy – and it hasn’t gotten easier. But in the face of rising costs and reduced funding opportunities, when many theater companies are contracting or closing their doors, The Assembly is recommitting to our core mission: to build community, invest in process, and uplift artists’ dream projects.
 

That commitment is the foundation of our Deceleration Labs. At a time when development support for theater is dwindling,  we’re expanding the Assembly’s artistic community to foster thrilling new collaborative experiments.

It’s also what inspired Harpo’s Salon: A Night of Conversation, where we share works-in-progress, conversation, and our internationally renowned open chip bar.

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And while we’ve paused development for the past year on Jess’s dream project, The Marx Sisters, we’re committed to continuing work on our madcap feminist extravaganza this spring. 

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From our premieres and educational workshops to Harpo’s Salon and The Deceleration Lab, we have found countless ways to dream forward. Each time we connect with an artist or audience member, we are reminded of the value of our experience and our vision, and the unique place we hold in the New York ecosystem.

 

You’re an important part of that, and we cannot do this without you. 

 

Please give what you can to help us realize our dreams.

With Love and Respect,

​

The Assembly

(Jess, Steve, Ben, Emily, and Meredith)

2024 HIGHLIGHTS / DREAMS FOR 2025

“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”
- Groucho Marx

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Deceleration Lab 

  • minna lee’s Memory Bear, an interactive installation, opened at Brooklyn’s LocalProduct gallery in October 2024. Using talking stuffed animals to carry a collection of recorded memories, their unique installation offers a chance to physically embrace the past. 

  • Erin Amlicke and Lillian White’s devised Kingdom Come – developed in both Lima, Peru and NYC – explores queer love, gender expression, and Catholicism through the lens of G.K. Chesterton’s existential spy thriller The Man Who Was Thursday. Kingdom Come premiered in Lima in September 2024, and will have a run in NYC in 2025.

 

Deceleration Lab Alumni

  • Soomi Kim was named a MacDowell Fellow and BAM resident artist.

  • matthew paul olmos’ a home what howls premiered at Steppenwolf in Chicago.

  • Friend of Friend’s Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone (developed in the Deceleration Lab) comes to HERE Arts Center this month after a sold-out performance at Joe’s Pub. In this hyperpop folk opera, the artists create a genderless/genderful utopia inspired by the early American nonbinary mystic Publick Universal Friend.

 

Salons

  • Harpo’s Salon: A Night of Conversation featured work-in-development from The Assembly and friends like melisa tien, Rosie McInness, Emily Louise Perkins, Moti Margolin, Kate Budney, Kelleen Moriarty, Rob Neill, and more.

  • We look forward to more salons – and more great snacks – in 2025. 


Industry Reading

  • In early 2025, The Assembly will mount a public reading of Owen Wilson’s Along the Bent and Narrow, a witty and resonant 1974 comedy-drama which explores the playwright’s coming-of-age as a gay man in Greenwich Village. Stay tuned for details.

 

Educational Intensives

  • The Assembly has booked our first client for our inaugural corporate workshops!

  • We offered a summer devising intensive as well as bespoke one-on-one consulting for a client and his ongoing devising project.

 

Our Next Play

  • The Marx Sisters is an investigation of our impulses for chaos and order that riffs on classic Marx Brothers characters, reinventing those archetypes for today through a feminist lens. In 2025, we’ll paint on our moustaches and get to work, aiming for a full-length premiere in 2026. 

Click here to hear more about Assembly artists' dream projects!

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