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The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research

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The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research

Article

The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research is a recurring organization in the Collected Agenda archive, appearing 7 times across 7 issues between October 28, 2024 and December 02, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research is throwing a Halloween Party”; “I read at The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research tonight”; “I never saw Uncle Vanya at The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research in its original run”. It most often appears alongside New York, Night Club 101, Matthew Gasda.

Metadata

  • Category: Organizations
  • Mention count: 7
  • Issue count: 7
  • First seen: October 28, 2024
  • Last seen: December 02, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Indulging in the Eschaton
October 28, 2024 · Original source
From 7:30pm — The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research is throwing a Halloween Party. Readings, tarots, cool girls, dancing, crafts, trick or treating, and more. Costumes are mandatory.
Inline links: The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research
Playing With Glass
November 05, 2024 · Original source
I read at The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research tonight. Sophia throws a good party. It’s hard to throw a perfect Halloween party. It’s like throwing the perfect holiday party, but even more precise. An endeavor in pure pleasure. I’ve never been to a Halloween party from corporate hell, for example. The BCTR Halloween Party is very perfectly precise. Good costumes (although mine isn’t) a roof that is warm and clear but the breeze is cool and the breeze is bringing in some mist, the breeze is fogging the Manhattan skyline, people are handing out lollipops, someone is doing tarot readings, the costume contest is fun, the costumes are creative enough to merit critique.
Inline links: Sophia
I cut my finger on glass on my way to The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research. There were forces in the smog, I think. Earlier, my water bottle exploded untouched in a canvas tote bag and I stood unmoving while water and then tiny little glass splinters pooled around my feet. My understanding of inertia rendered me incapable of action. Things don’t just explode untouched, and so the explosion confused me. I didn’t move to stop it, I didn’t even move to pull the leaking bag away from my leather boots. There were people around me. They better understood that the laws of inertia can be faulty.
After, walking down the stairs of BCTR in the dark and in a haze because the play left me reeling, I hear what sounds like loud rain on the street. I open the door, bracing myself for the downpour but then it's all clear skies, the wind moving dry leaves around with a rustle and pattering that sounds like a storm.
How to Redeem Yourself
March 25, 2025 · Original source
WHAT I DID Sunday, March 15 When I have a tablespoon of manuka honey with a sprinkle of sea salt before bed, I wake up feeling electric. My whole body is pulsing. It’s like a chemical reaction, almost. Very strange. When I record my letters like it’s a podcast or something, sitting at the marble kitchen table in my empty foggy living room, the recordings process and save like I am somewhere else. A restaurant nearby, maybe. The files label themselves. Finest Goods #1, Finest Goods #2, Finest Goods #9, Finest Goods #12. I do feel quite stupid, doing all of this. I’m sorry to speak like this. I’m sorry to be late or even absent, again. Long Island, Saint Patrick’s Day, my mom and my aunt and my cousins have me for dinner uptown and so I claw myself out of the apartment for this evening occasion. The health stuff is starting to feel more under control, thank god. It was starting to freak me out at the play last night. “There is no physical illness without mental connection, conceptualization, perception,” it was one of those words. Madelyn reminded me. I’m fine, really. I bought cold pressed rosehip oil and I bought multi-peptides + copper peptides. I bought four pints of ice cream to bring to the dinner tonight. I bought pink Kate Spade ballet flats and black Marc Jacobs riding boots and black manolo blahnik ballet flats, too, for soooo cheap vintage, but then when they arrived at my door, within minutes of arriving at my door, someone stole them! I am mostly upset because these things were a real splurge. I am also upset, because these things were one of a kind. Honestly, I am less upset about the one of a kind part. I am not too precious when it comes to things of fashion. The play last night was great. Matthew Gasda’s Uncle Vanya on Huron Street. Uncle Vanya at ArtX, because the water on Huron Street was shut off for the week. Admittedly, I never saw Uncle Vanya at The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research in its original run, but I was glad to see it in this bigger space, here - the insularity and the claustrophobia and the suffocating sense of everybody speaking and nobody being heard given ever-so-slightly more air in this room of high ceilings than in a living room loft. November - I was in a too small airbnb outside Albany New York and I almost punched a hole in the glass window. There was too much gray sleet, and no escape. I did not break the window, but I was somewhat awestruck by the potential for violence elicited by even the early aughts of claustrophobia. Which is to say, this is a bit of how I felt while watching Vanya. Dimes Square was insular, but the characters kind of love it. Vanya is insular, and there is literally no escape. What happens when you cannot leave, when there is nowhere to go, when the path lays itself bare at your feet and the options are bleak? It is not a hopeful story, though not nihilistic really, either. George Olesky is brilliant as The Doctor, Bob Laine as a kind of hapless Vanya, Asli Mumtas as the beautiful and listless Yelena, Mia Vallet as Sonya, half bursting with youthful vigor and potential, and then veering into a nearly manic and finally resigned pitch, as it becomes clear there will be no actualization. No salvation, either. I have thought before that desperation reeks, but this play suggests instead, that it festers. The characters who can leave, do. Those who must stay, are forced to find something else. What that something is remains a bit ambiguous. Integrity, perhaps. Hope in death and in God. Monday, March 16 I entered into all this fugue state psychosis yesterday. The guy my friends ran into at the bar yesterday entered into all this unrequited love psychosis. People can be so evil. That’s the last thing I texted my boyfriend before I basically blacked out on Saturday: people can be so evil. In my glass house, it was pouring pouring pouring rain last night. I felt so nostalgic for that apartment last night, even as it still remains mine, now. I felt like I could suddenly remember what it was for this apartment to be all new. There was no clutter last June. There was a sudden arrival in a place that was suddenly mine. It was freshly cleaned and there was all this space, it was like infinity it was like, all this light, oh my god, all this air and light and space, this will never get old. My mother says that about the fields behind the house sometimes: I moved in and I wondered if it would ever get old and it never did, she says. But she’s been there twenty-five years. humid summer air and thrifted propped up fans still blowing hot air through the white wood corridors on august mornings. I’ve been here nine months and I am already starting to stagnate. Which I guess is to say: I’m spoiled or, maybe I’m boring. Last night, I was nothing but happy. Tuesday, March 17 How to redeem yourself? Wednesday, March 18 Places this week: Cafe Reggio, The Public Library, Elizabeth Street Garden, Lucien for drinks, Fanelli Cafe for dinner. My roof every morning and night because it is spring now. Spring again. Spring at last. Thursday, March 19 And something gives in a permanent way. New practices, new routines, you cannot continue like this, and so you wake up one day and you don't. There has been a lot that has been beautiful and then, there has been me taking myself out of all this beauty. And you don't become so didactic and harsh and full empty promises. You just give yourself some willpower and then you give yourself some peace. I'm feeling really really really really annoyed on the plane to El Salvador. I'm sorry. This part isn't supposed to be in the story. I will tell you the real story, soon. WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Tuesday, March 25 From 6:30pm at McNally Jackson Seaport — Jamie Hood presents her new memoir Trauma Plot, in conversation with Rayne Risher-Quann.
Inline links: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pGk7!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F121e430b-e68e-404a-8963-27f700eb191f_1286x832.png, presents her new memoir
From 4pm - 6pm at BCTR — Fight Club returns for Volume II. This time, it’s a reading. Car Crash Girl by Taylor Jeanne Penney, and Mayor of Rome by Robin Schavoir. Spring is here, so obviously, the roof will be open.
Inline links: Taylor Jeanne Penney, Robin Schavoir
Summer Break
July 15, 2025 · Original source
From 8pm - 12pm at The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research — a one night only reading of an AI generated play trained on all Matthew Gasda’s plays. Error 404: Play Not Found. Tickets are free but donations are encouraged. - “This will be done with ample drinking and unseriousness--but the experiment may also be interesting on a philosophical level.”
Inline links: The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, Error 404: Play Not Found
Walking Poems
July 29, 2025 · Original source
From 7pm - 9pm at The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research — ARDOR opens. - “A friend-group of artists retreat upstate to the home of an aging painter. ARDOR explores the nature of intimacy and the connections we leave behind in an age of isolation.”
Things that Happened Once I Gave Up Vice
November 12, 2025 · Original source
From 7pm - 8:30pm at The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research — This Time by Matthew Gasda returns - “a play about relationships with a metaphysical twist.” | Tickets here (plus another performance on Thursday)
Inline links: The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, This Time, Thursday
From 7pm - 9pm at Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research — Another performance of Little Murders - “Talks of dead son’s, fecal photography, Vogue, and the “Breather” are just a taste of what happens in this Norman Rockwell-painting-gone-awry.” | Additional showtime 11/15
Inline links: Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, Little Murders
Florida, Massachusetts (03)
December 02, 2025 · Original source
From 7pm - 9pm at The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research — MESSAGES by Matthew Gasda returns - “A work that reflects on the importance of human relationships in our lives, asking us “who would you get on the ark with?” | Tickets here. Additional shows: December 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Inline links: The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, here
From 8:55 - 11:15pm at The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research — Watch the playwriting process in motion and listen to a live reading of the FIFTH draft of “The Last Days of Downtown” by Matthew Gasda. Tickets here.
Inline links: The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, here

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