Founded by theater director, Roberta Uno, From 1979-2009, the New WORLD Theater worked at the intersection of artistic practice, community engagement, scholarship, and activism toward a vision of a ‘new world’—one that broke the confines of multiculturalism and was an artistic harbinger of America’s shifting demographics. From a geographic ‘outpost’ in New England, New WORLD Theater evolved from a community organizing project and the Northeast point on a theater touring compass, to a protective studio to hone new work, a site of international intersections from South Africa to the South Bronx, and the home of inspired and rigorous collaborations with Western Massachusetts youth. New performance work development at New WORLD defied the conventional theater play lab as ghetto for artists of color; artists were met where they wanted to be in the imagining of new approaches, methods, and production. One of New WORLD Theater’s artistic legacies is Project 2050, an early call to imagine the U.S. demographic shift, with people of the future — youth, in equal collaboration with artists and scholars.

The records of New WORLD Theater are held by the Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries.

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