New Victory LabWorks

Established in 2012, New Victory LabWorks supports New York-based artists of all disciplines in making works that challenge common preconceptions about theater for young audiences.

New Victory LabWorks Artists each receive financial support, rehearsal space and bespoke professional development, networking and community-building opportunities. Artists also hold invited rehearsals for industry professionals, fellow artists, and kid and family audiences with facilitated feedback sessions.

By connecting artists with New Victory families and Education Partners to garner invaluable feedback from kids, New Victory LabWorks invites artists to hone their craft, expand their skills, make contacts in the field, take artistic risks and make bold choices with their work.

Responding to the Field

New Victory LabWorks began in response to a Theater for Young Audiences (TYA) community need and has remained an iterative program. It has evolved in goals and focus over the years based on feedback and research from partner organizations, program participants and other professionals from the field of TYA.

2010: NYC-based TYA artists gather for the New Victory Scottish Festival and identify a need for professional development and networking.

2012: LabWorks officially launches with up to 10 works being selected each season for development support at New 42 Studios.

2017: New Victory LabWorks Artists begin traveling to national TYA conferences with New Victory Artistic Programming staff, connecting with presenters and practitioners from around the world.

2020: In response to research from TYA/USA about the significant underrepresentation of artists of color in the field—and to the #BlackLivesMatter movement—LabWorks becomes a program for NYC-based artists of color, including those who identify as LGBTQIA+ and/or disabled.

2021: New Victory LabWorks Launch is established, providing individualized support for a particular project to be further developed, with the aim of presenting the work at the New Victory and/or on other national or international stages in the future.

2025: New 42, the parent organization of New Victory, is currently engaged in a strategic planning process. We are taking 2025 to assess the current needs of the field and formulate the next iteration of LabWorks.

2025-26 LabWorks Launch project will further the development of The Garden by Flying Leap Productions, an original, site-specific theater piece designed for children aged 0-5 and their families.

The Garden is a radically inclusive, meditative performance exploring the life cycle with very young children and their families in public green spaces. In The Garden, families experience the life cycle through all five senses – through movement theater, poetic text in three languages, and interactive play – seated in the grass beneath the open sky in their local public park.

The Garden was developed with support from the New York City Artist Corps, New Victory LabWorks Alumni Program, and Chelsea Factory.

Flying Leap Productions is New York’s only site-specific family theater company. Flying Leap’s artists have created and produced original works such as The Garden, an interactive meditative performance for families staged in public parks and green spaces in NYC; Beyond the Wall || Más Allá del Muro, a binational giant puppetry project at the US/Mexico border wall (seen in Mexico, Prague, New York, London, and Chicago) and Lights in the Sky, an immersive, Jewish, light-based performance set in a roaming tent. Since founding in 2021, Flying Leap has received support from New Victory LabWorks Program, The Uptown Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Education Department, and was a 2024-2025 A.R.T. New York Small Theaters Fund grant recipient. Founder and Producing Artistic Director Jess Kaufman has been a New Victory Theater LabWorks Artist, a New York Foundation for the Arts “Emerging Arts Leader”, and recently served as the Acting Executive Director of TYA/USA.