Dear friend,

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The table is set, and inviting aromas are wafting from the kitchen.

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We often say that we “slow-cook” Assembly plays, taking time to deeply engage with our collaborators, our source materials, and our community. It’s allowed us to make plays that grapple with complexity and ambiguity, plays that interest themselves in different points of view, plays that tell stories about communities, not just heroes.

 

And while the past few years have stretched our development process even longer, our kitchen has been full of new projects. Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve had four workshops of our new musical IN CORPO and have been laying the groundwork for its premiere in June 2023, for a more full realization of Nate Weida and Ben Beckley’s zany vision than would have been possible two years earlier. With an unparalleled creative team and a cast of musical geniuses, we are over the moon to share this show with you at last.

 

At the same time, our Deceleration Lab has been going strong, creating an environment for artists in our community to develop new works of theater that are fundamentally collaborative, multidisciplinary, and boldly experimental. This year we welcomed our third Lab cohort–Soomi Kim, Andy Boyd, syd island, and Philip Santos Schaffer–and we look forward to selecting our 2023 artists very soon.

 

And we’ve begun work on the next slate of Assembly projects, with a residency at the Mercury Store to explore a long-brewing idea of Jess Chayes’ that draws on the classic Marx Brothers archetypes. We channeled our inner Grouchos, let loose our inner Harpos, Chico’d our inner Chicos, and tried to get to the bottom of what it means to be a Zeppo, laying the groundwork for vaudeville spectacle coming at you in 2024.

 

In all the recipes we’ve enclosed, the missing ingredient is you. With 38% of our budget made up of individual donations, we often say that we can’t do this without you. But what is also true is that we don’t want to do this without you. 

 

This banquet of new work also comes with an ambitious budget, bigger than any other year in The Assembly’s history. We need your support to cross this next threshold. Donate to The Assembly—we want you at our table at whatever level of support feels right. 

 

See you in the room. Or the theater. Or the bar after the theater. Or wherever we’re going after that.

 

Love,

Stephen, Ben, Emily, Jess, Meredith 

(& the newest Assembly member: Sarah Beckley-Chayes!)

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