Bio
Asal Takesh is a theater practitioner, scholar, and emerging creative technologist born in Iran, raised in San Francisco, and based in New York City. She is a fourth-year B.F.A drama student within NYU Tisch School of the Arts, having trained at Playwrights Horizons Theater School and in the inaugural cohort of the Innovation Studio led by Rubén Polendo. Takesh minors in the Business of Entertainment, Media, & Technology and is in pursuit of an Honors degree in Theatre Studies.
Devotion to an understanding of how we relate to ourselves and others within the contemporary moment propels Asal’s art-making towards the interrogation of genealogical and cultural inheritance, memory, and reinventions of the Self within a research-based model. Her artistic practice includes direction, performance, and sonic production through performance. Poetry drives the root of her practice: image-making as ritual.
Asal values her cultural contexts and identity deeply. Until liberation.
News & Updates
æthaus,
a theater company
@aethaus | (aith-hous)
Created by Madison Broadway, Skylar Causey, Gabi DuPont, Zury Lowell, Allie Poole, Sophie Rossman, Jaccoa Stills, and Asal Takesh.
Founding Artistic Director, Asal Takesh
Photos by @najwill
[Productions]
The Beast, The mOther, & The Kid
A brief discourse of a disease called the suffocation of the mother.
ALab Theater Festival @ IRT Theater
Directed by Asal Takesh
June 30th - July 2nd (2025)
this is where i knew you best
Playwrights Horizons Theater School
Directed by Asal Takesh
November 14th-16th (2024)
here at the gate / here your form lies and [error] pray for it / i don't know what you are /
here at the gate / here your form lies and [error] pray for it / i don't know what you are /
this is where i knew you best is a research-based performance piece engaging with manifestations of trauma as they relate to memory, identity, and the physical body.
the Self malfunctions in a state of dissociation at the intersection of performance and technology, where the question of autonomy is governed by faith in an efficient quality of life.
a force within a House of God— to be reckoned with or reckoned for.
the team
Director: Asal Takesh
Associate Director: Madison Broadway
Assistant Director: Skylar Causey
Projection Designer: Zury Lowell
Lighting Designer: Jaccoa Stills
Set/Scenic Designer: Topaz Gao
Sound Designers: Gavin Brehm, George Estey, and Landon Hegedus
The Players:
Gabi DuPont (The Little One)
Allie Poole (The Skeptic)
Colette Pitts (The Care-Taker)
Sophie Rossman (The Cruiser)
Creative Consultants:
Britney Lizbeth Quiroz
Corinne Renick
Created by Asal Takesh, Madison Broadway, Skylar Causey, Allie Poole, Gabi DuPont, Sophie Rossman, Jaccoa Stills, Zury Lowell, and Colette Pitts.
[Scholarship]
NYU Arts-Based Research Conference
A multimedia presentation on:
“Prosthetic Memory and Digital Remains: this is where i knew you best” by Asal Takesh
*Featuring real-time interactive technology and performance from this is where i knew you best.
Performances by Allie Poole and Gabi Dupont
Projections by Zury Lowell.
Presented by Asal takesh
Prosthetic Memory and Digital Remains: this is where i knew you best
By Asal Takesh
50th anniversary tisch theater studies Symposium:
theatre of nonhuman & technology
NYU Tisch School of the Arts
721 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 (Dean’s Conference Room, 12th Floor)
March 15th, 2025
12:30pm - 2:10pm
Direction
The Beast, The MOther, & The Kid
ALab Theater Festival @ IRT Theater
Created by Henry Alper, Madison Broadway, Skylar Causey, Gabi DuPont, Zury Lowell, Allie Poole, Sophie Rossman, Jaccoa Stills, and Asal Takesh.
Players: Henry Alper, Skylar Causey, Gabi DuPont, Allie Poole, and Sophie Rossman.
Directed by Asal Takesh
Photos by @orbitalboner
this is where i knew you best
Playwrights Horizons Theater School; New York University
this is where i knew you best by Asal Takesh, Madison Broadway, Skylar Causey, Allie Poole, Gabi DuPont, Sophie Rossman, Jaccoa Stills, Zury Lowell, and Colette Pitts
Directed by Asal Takesh
The Players:
Gabi DuPont (The Little One)
Allie Poole (The Skeptic)
Colette Pitts (The Care-Taker)
Sophie Rossman (The Cruiser)
Photos by @orbitalboner
The Casbah
Broke People Play Festival; New York University
The Casbah by Asal Takesh
Directed by Asal Takesh
The Players:
Salah: Soli Partovi
Fadil: Safin Karim
Performance
The Flamboyán @ The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center
The Seagull & The Raven & The Fox & The Peacock & The Old Dog
A devised adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull.
Devised by Henry Alper, Blaise Ylianna Hewlett, Jason Hoover, Max Newman, Isabelle Ormsby, Soli Partovi, Sophie Rossman, Asal Takesh, Kayta Thomas, Luke Wisniewski, & Luke Wyngarden.
Facilitated By Sophie Rossman, Henry Alper, & Luke Wisniewski.
Winter 2025
Frigid New York @ UNDER St Marks Theater
Tom Blanc Fucking Dies from the Crow Carious Universe (Prometheus)
Dir. Topaz Gao
Fall 2024
Playwrights Horizons Theater School
Aunt Leaf by Barbara Wiechmann (Aunt Leaf)
Dir. Elizabeth Leach
Fall 2023
A.C.T. Strand Theater
World Premiere: The Code by The Kilbanes (Tatianna)
Dir. Jessica Holt
Summer 2022
OPEN STUDIO: ARCHIVE
VISUAL + SONIC EXPERIMENTATION
[ONE]
[DEYAR]
[SELF-PORTRAIT]
an exploration of [THE ENDLESS SELF]
music archive: samples, inspirations, soundtrack of the mind.
