For HBCU Campuses
Your campus is not a tour stop. Your audience shapes the script, and the playwright hears it directly.
The Flagship Program
New Pages! Heritage Tours™
New plays about real Black American heroes, developed on the road — at HBCU campuses, regional theaters, and culturally-focused museums.
The Premise
A play about a real life should be tested in the place that life was lived.
New Pages! Heritage Tours™ commissions new plays about real Black American heroes and develops them on the road rather than behind closed doors.
A ten-stop tour through the Southeast and Deep South brings each script to HBCU campuses, regional theaters, and culturally-focused museums, with a talkback and a short campus or community residency at every stop. What the audience says in those rooms goes back into the script.
The premise is dramaturgical, not promotional. A room in the hero's home city knows things about that person that no research trip surfaces — what was true, what was flattened, what was left out. Hearing it while the play can still change is the whole design.
Program Design
From commission to the road.
01
The call
A national open call for full-length plays centered on a real Black American figure. Opens November 1, 2026; closes January 15, 2027. No fee, no exclusivity.
02
Selection
Selections announced March 2027. Host institutions are consulted while the choice is being made, not after — their read on the material is part of the decision.
03
Development period
A commission and a development window through 2027, run with consent-forward rehearsal practice from the first day in the room.
04
The first leg
Fall 2027. Ten stops across the Southeast and Deep South. A touring company of four to eight, one to three days on site per stop.
05
The response goes back in
A talkback after every performance, plus a playwriting workshop or community listening session at each stop. The playwright is in as many of those rooms as the schedule allows, and revisions follow the tour.
On The Ground
What a stop actually is.
A stop is a company of four to eight, one to three days on site, and a package we build with you — performance, talkback, and either a playwriting workshop or a community listening session.
- A full performance of the developing play
- A moderated post-show talkback with the playwright when possible
- A playwriting workshop or a community listening session
- Coordination with the local NPHC (Divine Nine) chapters
- A touring company of four to eight, traveling with the production
- One to three days on site, scheduled around your calendar
We come with the production. What we ask of you is a room, an audience, and your honest read of whether the play is telling the truth.
The Rooms
Three audiences, three offers.
For Regional Theaters
We bring you a developing play with a national community behind it — and a rehearsal room run with care that your artists will feel on day one.
For Museums & Public History
We are not bringing a finished play to your campus. We are bringing an unfinished one, on purpose, because your response is part of the writing.
One commissioned play reaches ten communities, four states, and thousands of students in a single academic year — for less than a single mainstage production.
Dates
The first leg timeline.
- Sun, Nov 1, 2026Call opens
- Fri, Jan 15, 2027Call closes
- March 2027Selections announced
- 2027Development period
- Fall 2027First leg tours (ten stops)
New Pages! Heritage Tours™ is a program of New Day Theatricals, Inc.