The community is heard first
Consent-forward practice is built into every rehearsal room from day one — not added when difficult material arrives. Audiences can see it from the third row.
About & Founder
A rising light in American theater.
A New York–based 501(c)(3) theatrical development company.
Founded
New York, NY
Public Launch
November 1, 2026
Status
501(c)(3) Nonprofit
Flagship Program
New Pages! Heritage Tours™
The Company
Producing, touring, and consulting on new American work about real Black lives.
New Day Theatricals, Inc. is a New York–based theatrical development company founded by Ann James — producer, stage director, intimacy coordinator, and arts consultant.
New Day Theatricals, Inc. produces new plays, musicals, operas, and immersive events about real Black American heroes.
Its flagship program, New Pages! Heritage Tours™, commissions new plays and develops them in public, on tour, rather than behind closed doors: a ten-stop first leg through the Southeast and Deep South brings each play to HBCU campuses, regional theaters, and culturally-focused museums, with talkbacks and campus residencies built into every stop. Musicals, operas, and immersive events are produced by the wider company outside the touring program. The company works from a network of 144 identified institutional partners — including 79 theater companies, 33 HBCU campuses, and 23 museums — and engages NPHC (Divine Nine) organizations at the chapter level in each city.
Alongside its producing work, New Day Theatricals consults with theaters and institutions on new-play development, audience partnership, and consent-forward rehearsal practice. That consulting work is formalized as the Cultural Intelligence Process for the Arts (CIP), a framework for cultural and intimacy safety built from Ann James's dual expertise as a stage director and intimacy coordinator. Every production is built with a consent-forward rehearsal practice. The tagline is the standard: A Rising Light in American Theater.
How We Work
Developed in public, on purpose.
The audience that lived nearest a story should be heard before the story is finished. That is a dramaturgical position, not an outreach strategy.
Commitments
Three commitments.
Care is a production value
Consent-forward practice starts with how the room is set before anyone walks in.
Playwrights keep their work
No submission fee. No exclusivity. We ask for the development window, not the ownership.
Founder
Ann James
Producer · Stage Director · Intimacy Coordinator · Arts Consultant
Ann James is a producer, stage director, intimacy coordinator, and arts consultant based in New York, and the founder of New Day Theatricals, Inc. Her work sits where three practices meet: the development of new American plays, the stewardship of Black historical narrative, and the discipline of consent and care in the rehearsal room.
Through New Pages! Heritage Tours™, the company's flagship program, James commissions plays about real Black American heroes and develops them in public rather than in private — taking each script on a ten-stop first leg through the Southeast and Deep South, with talkbacks, campus residencies, and community response built into the development process itself.
As a consultant, James advises regional theaters and PWI institutions on new-play pipelines, audience partnership with Black communities, and the design of consent-forward rehearsal practice — work that has made her a sought voice on how institutions can produce difficult material without harming the artists who make it. As a speaker and essayist, she writes on Black theatrical heritage, intimacy direction, and the economics of touring new work.
The call opens November 1, 2026.
Full-length plays about real Black American figures. No fee, no exclusivity.