New Heritage Theatre Group
New Heritage Theatre Group
229 West 135th StreetNew York, NY 10030
212 926 0104
newheritagetheatre.org
Few theaters put as much effort into bettering their communities as they do into their productions, but for Voza Rivers and New Heritage Theatre Group, positively impacting Harlem and the global Black arts community is central to their mission.
New Heritage is New York’s oldest Black non-profit arts group that performs on stages throughout Harlem. It was founded as the New Heritage Repertory Theatre by the late Roger Furman, who was an acclaimed playwright, director, actor, and member of the American Negro Theater, where he worked amongst Sidney Poitier, Ossie Davis, and Harry Belafonte.
Voza, who had been a longtime volunteer and shadowed Furman to learn the ropes, took over the theater following Furman’s passing in 1983. He gained international recognition by working with the South African playwright Mbongeni Ngema. Ngema’s plays about apartheid in his home country played on Broadway and Lincoln Center, and after forming a relationship with Voza, he made sure Ngema’s plays were performed in Harlem. Ngema’s acclaim followed him uptown, and suddenly New Heritage was drawing profiles from the likes of The New York Times and enough revenue that Voza could create a worldwide collaborative network of Black artists.
The success also changed the theater scene in New York, which had for a long time seen racially divided audiences. Voza said that when word got around about New Heritage’s caliber, “the downtown people started coming uptown.”
In everything it does, New Heritage is committed to uplifting Black artists and using art to dismantle harmful stereotypes. In addition to putting on productions and screening documentaries, the group hosts festivals and celebrations of music and history that bring in attendees from far outside the neighborhood. The company also provides training and international exposure to veteran and emerging artists. As Voza says, “Culture plays a major role in advancing the ideas of a people.”
Few people would serve New Heritage like Voza because few are as devoted to the community as he is. Born and raised in the neighborhood, Voza jokes that he got his education not in a classroom but between 125th and 145th Streets. “It all centered around this one-mile radius.”