New Heritage Theatre Group

HISTORY AND BACKGROUND
New Heritage Theatre was founded in 1964 by Roger Furman, a noted playwright, director, lighting and sound designer who created a simple mission for the theatre: to present and produce quality productions by emerging and established artists of color at affordable prices. In 1983 Voza Rivers assumed the leadership of New Heritage and expanded on the original mission statement by looking at diverse voices from the African and Latin Diaspora and concentrated on South African theater. In 1997, Jamal Joseph, the Executive Artistic Director of New Heritage Theatre joined the leadership team and they created three divisions for the theatre:

The Roger Furman Reading Series

The Roger Furman Reading Series works with emerging playwrights on early drafts of their scripts with the goal of presenting their work in front of a live audience. After the reading is completed, discussions with the audiences focus around the issue brought up in the play and how to improve it. In some cases plays read in the Reading Series go on to full scale production. Some recent pieces have included “Winterkill”, “Paradise Lost,” “The Long Black Block,” “Camp Logan”, “The Diva and the Rapper”, as well as “A Huey P Newton Story,” “Voodoo Macbeth” and “Tierno Boker.”

New Heritage Theatre Group also produces musical events including “Art Speak, Remembering Miriam Makeba with Tsidii LeLoka,” “Berta’s Jam,” “All of Me” with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem All Stars,” “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues,” “White, Black and Blues,” “Jazz for Peace,” and “Do Enka,” a musical celebration of American Jazz and Japanese Do-Enka music, as well as the premier performance of Craig Harris’s “Tri-Harlenium”, “Ladies Singing the Blues on Broadway, and Kenn Hick’s “Avanti”.

IMPACT Repertory Theatre

IMPACT Repertory Theatre is a unique program that uses the performing arts and leadership training to empower under served New York City youth. IMPACT promotes the healthy development of young people ages 12 to 18 by providing a learning environment that encourages, nurtures and challenges its students. It offers arts workshops, performance opportunities, community service, tutoring and mentoring to its participants. The program curriculum encourages its young students to focus on life and pre-professional skills, literacy, culture and political issues. IMPACT members who have matured passed the age of 18 typically become a part of Furman Theatre Rep and New Heritage Films.

IMPACT Repertory Theatre Performance Company – students use current events and their own personal experiences as source material to explore the issues facing young people in America. The Rep company performs an average of 75 shows a year in front of an audience exceeding 10,000 a year in public schools, colleges, homeless shelters, festivals, museums, libraries, Apollo Theater, United Nations Penal institutions and churches. In February 2008, IMPACT performed “Raise it Up”, their Oscar nominated song at the Academy Awards. The world wide audience for that show was one billion. In July, 2010 members of IMPACT performed for 40 young leaders from around the globe as part of the World Economic Forum’s Global Fellow Initiative (article attached and responses from participants).

IMPACT Repertory Theatre Community Service Programs – Impact believes the first step of true leadership is service. Every year members of Impact visit nursing homes, participate in block clean ups and organize food drives to assist in the health of their community. On Saturday, September 25, 2010, 20 Japanese students arrived from Japan to join with 20 IMPACT members to clean up West 138th and West 139th Street and the 32nd Precinct police parking lot on West 135th Street as part of their public service commitment.

New Heritage Films

Dedicated to promoting social change through creative action, New Heritage Films produces and presents films, videos and documentaries that explore the Black experience in varied and unique ways. It also empowers emerging film makers and IMPACT members to receive thorough training in screen writing, video editing and production. New Heritage Films has produced a number of award-winning works which include Drive By: A Love Story, Da Zone, Burning Sands, Central Park, Hip Hop in the Promise Land and Hughes’ Dream Harlem. New Heritage Films also co-produced Randall Dottin's film A-ALIKE, which won the Gold Medal at the Student Academy Awards. Current film productions include Harlem Is Gospel and The Savoy King, the story of Chick Webb and Harlem's Savoy Ballroom.

New Heritage Films Programs Include:

The Dramatic Writing Academy – New Heritage Films in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts, the Harlem Arts Alliance, and the Writer’s Guild of America East offer workshops to aspiring writers from Harlem and the greater New York City area on how to write their first screenplay. Recently the Academy expanded to 50 writers from various ethnic groups including Hispanics, Blacks, Africans, Asians, and recently arrived immigrants from Europe. A list of members is attached.

The New Heritage Films/Harlemwood Film Festival features aspiring and established filmmakers of color from Harlem, greater New York City community and beyond to showcase their documentaries and short films. Also included are post screening discussions with the filmmakers regarding the fundamentals of filmmaking from script to screen. This year we held premieres for “Still Bill,” the life of Bill Withers, “Harlem is Theater,” “One Night in Vegas” the story of the friendship between Tupac Shakur and Mike Tyson’s and “Fela NYC,” a documentary about Fela Kuti’s historic visit to Harlem and New York City in 1968.

For the last several years we have presented Asian culture through various collaborations titled “East Meets West,” “Voices for Peace,” “Unheard Notes” and “Do Enka.” In 2005, we presented the High Society Orchestra from Waseda University in Tokyo at The Schomburg Center. We featured the Tocho Swing Beats All Star Band of Japan and legendary Grammy award winning jazz artist Frank Foster at the Schomburg. We have presented these events at the following venues: Aaron Davis Hall, Schomburg Center, Cave Auditorium at Harlem Hospital, HARLEM WEEK Festival, Julliard School of Music, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Birdland Jazz Club, the Museum of the City of New York, Manhattan School of Music, the United Nations and Carnegie Hall.

INTERNATIONAL PRESENTATIONS

In our International Series we have presented plays and films by Hispanic members of New Heritage; Ms. Elvira Carizal “Women of Suarez” played to sold out audiences at Museo del Barrio. New Heritage was commissioned to produce the 90th anniversary of Manhattan School of Music, featuring Bobby Sanabria and the Manhattan School of Music’s Afro-Cuban band on the Plaza of the Harlem State Office Building. We also produced “Three Guys Named Joe” with Latin musicians Joe Cuba, Joey Bataan and Joey Morant at the Schomburg Center. We presented an extraordinary mix of Latin jazz with legendary master percussionists Joe Cuba and Max Roach at Manhattan School of Music.

“Unheard Notes” was presented at the United Nations and Carnegie Hall in 2007. It featured 40 physically and mentally challenged classical pianists from 25 different countries. In December of 2009 Unheard Notes expanded and was presented by New Heritage at the historic Christ Church Cathedral and Chan Center at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. In Vancouver, we had 80 pianists representing 30 countries, playing from Bach to Beethoven. The event was critically received and simulcast to Tokyo, Japan.

Lst year we partnered with the Theatre at Riverside Church, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, and presented the Obie award winning actor, director, playwright Daniel Beaty. After sold out performances at Riverside Theatre, the show was transferred to the 500 seat Union Square Theatre in downtown Manhattan. We are proud to say that New Heritage is part of the Shine the Light Initiative whereby supporters and donors write checks to NHTG to underwrite free and low cost tickets for needy students so that they can experience the work of Daniel Beaty.