New City Players is a professional, ensemble-based nonprofit theatre company in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Our Mission
To stage transformative classic, contemporary, and original works of live theatre that explore the complexity and diversity of the human experience, create space for authentic dialogue, and connect South Florida audiences and artists.
Our Vision
To be a vital public square in Broward County—where stories spark change, artistry shapes understanding, and a diverse ensemble leads the charge toward a more empathetic, curious, and connected society.
Our Values
Our values shape every choice we make—from the stories we share to how we engage with our community. They ground us, challenge us, and guide us.
Pursue Excellence: We challenge ourselves to reach the highest artistic standards. Through rigorous preparation and bold storytelling, we create theatre that is both emotionally compelling and thought-provoking. .
Spark Empathy: We share stories that reflect our community’s rich diversity to deepen understanding, inspire self-reflection, and encourage meaningful action.
Practice Inclusion: We create spaces—on stage, backstage, and in the audience—where all identities are welcomed and honored, ensuring that everyone feels seen, heard, and valued.
Foster Collaboration: We champion teamwork among artists, audiences, and supporters, and nurture an ensemble whose trust and connection fuel deeper, more impactful storytelling.
Embrace Growth: We commit to honest reflection and accountability, continually learning and striving for greater authenticity, inclusion, and relevance as individuals and as an organization.
Our History
New City Players’ very first production, Godspell.
In the earliest days of what would become New City Players, several members of the South Florida community, with the support of the City Arts Initiative, banded together to put on our inaugural show, Godspell. In April 2014 we performed at C&I Studios for two sold out performances and were met with much enthusiasm from our audiences.
Subsequently, founding member, Tim Davis, submitted a proposal to direct the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire to the City Arts Initiative. In November 2014, we performed Rabbit Hole five times at Muse Center for the Arts. Rabbit Hole was met with positive reviews from our audiences and was a powerful bonding experience for the cast and production staff. It also set us on a trajectory of staging works that address the complexity and diversity of the human condition and create space for transformative experiences. It was here that we began to envision a theatre company in Fort Lauderdale that explored the full range of humanity with honesty and vigor by staging an eclectic mix of classic and contemporary theatre.
Nine months later in August 2015 we mounted our third production with the support of the City Arts Initiative, the Tony Award winning play Red by John Logan. Running for eight shows at Andrews Living Arts Studio, Red received praise from audiences and critics alike and solidified our company's artistic ethos as an ensemble-based group that would pursue excellence in all aspects of our storytelling and our desire to bring something new to Broward County. As the character Mark Rothko says to his apprentice Ken at the Red, “Make something new.” We took that advice and ran with it.
Timothy Mark Davis (left) and Johnny Contini (right) in New City Players’ production of Red.
New City Players filed to incorporate in the state of Florida on January 7, 2016 and received its 501(c)(3) status on March 14, 2016. That year we launched our first official season, staging classics No Exit and The Glass Menagerie to excited audiences and critics. We followed up with a stellar 2017 season of Proof, Twelfth Night, and True West, which solidified our spot as an essential part of the theatre scene in Broward County, earning us the Silver Palm Award for Outstanding New Theatre Company and a Carbonell Nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 2018 we staged a string of Carbonell recommended productions with the Pulitzer Prize winning Clybourne Park, the Tony winning ‘Art’, and the riveting Constellations. 2017 and 2018 also saw our ensemble of artists double in size, the growth of our community programming, and significant increases in sponsor, donor, and grant revenue as our sponsor base doubled.
New City Players’ gripping production of A Raisin in the Sun.
2019 proved to be a hallmark year for New City Players critically and commercially. All 3 of our productions, A Raisin in the Sun, Macbeth, and Falling, were Carbonell recommended and received glowing reviews from critics. Consequently, A Raisin in the Sun received 3 Carbonell nominations and Falling received 2. Ultimately, Rita Cole won Best Supporting Actress for her role as Ruth in A Raisin in the Sun and Timothy Mark Davis won Best Actor for his role as Josh in Falling. In addition to this success, the season sold out two-thirds of all performances.
In 2020 New City Players made a hard digital pivot due to the pandemic and began a nightly Instagram live series, called Late Show Live, which hosted 100 theatre artists and helped raise over $15,000 for the South Florida Theatre League Relief Fund (a fund created to put money directly in the pockets of South Florida’s theatre artists). In partnership with the Broward County Cultural Division, we commissioned five culturally distinct and relevant zoom plays, produced a narrative podcast called Little Montgomery, and turned our NCPLab event into a twice-monthly, zoom-based, actor/writer gathering that saw 30+ artists at every gathering, all contributing to the creation of new work and providing a much-needed creative outlet for local theatre artists and a much-needed form of cultural engagement for local audiences.
Poster for A Love Like This, New City Players’ joint production with Art Prevails Project.
Additionally in 2020, New City Players entered into an anti-racism cohort with a handful of other theaters in our region, spearheaded by the South Florida Theatre League, and called ARTS (Antiracist Theatre Strategies). This six month cohort helped us clarify our values around antiracism and gave us a plan for how to enact those values throughout our programming, policies, and company culture.
Though we had already made a priority of choosing and casting our productions in a way that sheds light on underrepresented stories, these experiences and 2020's cultural reckoning moved this focus to the forefront. Thus, our first production back after the pandemic was a partnership with Art Prevails Project, an all-Black and multidisciplinary South Florida artistic collective that our organization helped provide with the resources to produce six short plays by local Black playwrights and featured an all Black cast.
This focus was followed up throughout the subsequent 2021-2022 season with a production of Lungs that featured two Black cast members as the play's two characters and a production of Water By the Spoonful featuring a majority BIPOC cast. Between these two mainstage shows, we also produced our first NCPLab Festival, which brought to the stage seven new short plays that were developed through our NCPLab events and represented a unique chance for up and coming artists of all backgrounds, ages, and abilities to share their work and talents with a wide swath of the community. Our 2021-2022 also saw our company change venues, now working out of Island City Stage in Wilton Manors.
A photo from New City Players’ very first NCPLab Short Play Festival.
Our 22-23 and 23-24 seasons saw us on a rebuilding path after the pandemic and a venue change. Our commitment to producing exceptional classic and contemporary theatre with an ensemble of artists that represents the diversity and complexity of the human condition has paid off as we’ve seen significant donor growth, large grants from the Community Foundation of Broward, continued operating support from the Broward County Cultural Division, and project support from Funding Arts Broward. Programmatically we:
Started a popular Christmas radio play tradition with It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (2021) and A Christmas Carol: A Live Radio Play (2022) (adapted by ensemble member Tyler Johnson Grimes).
Continued telling new stories that represent the diversity of our community with the regional premiere of Cry Old Kingdom by Haitian-American playwright Jeff Augustin in 2023 and the world premiere of 1000 Miles by Miami playwright Vanessa Garcia in 2024. We also brought our pandemic podcast, Little Montgomery, to life with a regional premiere of the play, our first comedy in several years.
Continued our NCPLab short play festival in 2023 and rebranded the program in 2024 as Short Plays: Lauder Made, making it a feature of our season rather than an add-on.
Went back to our classic roots with a critically acclaimed and completely sold out run of A Streetcar Named Desire in the summer of 2024.
Elizabeth Price (left) and Timothy Mark Davis (right) in New City Players’ critically acclaimed production of A Streetcar Named Desire.
Our 2024-2025 season has represented us building back to beyond where we were pre-pandemic with the hiring of our first full-time employee to lead the operations and development aspects of the organization, continued donor and subscriber growth, another world premiere play continuing our Christmas play tradition, another classic play with a nearly sold out run, and a new play fresh from off-broadway that explores race with piercing satire.