The Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University will present Xulgaria, a new musical fairytale and ritual for healing by Kamara Thomas. The performance on April 25 at 4:30 p.m. in the Forum at the Lewis Arts complex on the Princeton University campus is free and open to the public; no tickets are required. The Forum is an accessible venue. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at least one week in advance at LewisCenter@princeton.edu.
Thomas, a 2022-24 Princeton Arts Fellow, presents this first developmental production of her new musical theater work, featuring students from her spring course, the Princeton Playhouse Orchestra and Choir, and guest artists from across the country. In this dark but hopeful fairy tale, two friends find themselves in an underworld of eternal winter—Xulgaria. On their journey they must face the great Bird-women who are the land’s rulers as they search for spring and retrieve the parts of themselves thought lost.
Princeton Arts Fellow Kamara Thomas, performing her recent work Tularosa: An American Dreamtime, who will present at Princeton a developmental performance of her current work, Xulgaria. Photo credit: Shakiru Bola Okoya
Songs in the production are by Thomas and Emily Denton with additional music by Gabriel Berezin and Suzan Hurtuk. Thomas and guest artist Michael Sater are directing. The students featured in the performance are seniors Dea Franzek and Sara Ryave and sophomores Ava Kronman and Matthew Cooperberg, joined by guest artists Amal Bouhabib, Emily Denton, Janet Mylott, Sinclair Palmer and Kym Register. The Princeton Playhouse Ensembles, led by Lecturer in Music Directing and Choral Programs Solon Snider Sway, perform the score with orchestrations by recent alum Jimmy Waltman.
An audience talkback will follow the performance. This production contains content about suicide. If you or someone you know may have suicidal thoughts, please call or chat online with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Thomas is a singer, songwriter and multidisciplinary storyteller, and, as she says, “a songspeller and mythology fanatic” based in Durham, North Carolina. Her storytelling is collaborative and multi-faceted, weaving together musical and theater performance, community art-making, ritual, and visual elements including film, masks, archival material and photography. In collaboration with the Denver-based theater company Band of Toughs, Thomas has been developing Tularosa: An American Dreamtime, a storywork based on her 2022 album of the same name, which explores the American psyche through the mythology of the American West; two developmental performances were presented at Princeton this past year. She also spearheads Country Soul Songbook, an artist-centered community and online platform featuring performances, interviews, conversations, and cultural offerings rooted in the mission to amplify historically marginalized voices in Country and Americana music. Thomas has been a featured artist for Lincoln Center Education and was named one of the “14 Artists Proving Black Americana is Real” by Paste Magazine in 2017. She has created commissioned work for Cassilhaus, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina and has been a guest speaker at Duke, Princeton, and Indiana Universities.
The Arts Fellows program provides support for early-career artists who have demonstrated both extraordinary promise and a record of achievement in their fields with the opportunity to further their work while teaching within a liberal arts context. Funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the David E. Kelley ’79 Society of Fellows Fund, and the Maurice R. Greenberg Scholarship Fund, fellows are selected for a two-year residency to teach a course each semester or, in lieu of a course, to undertake an artistic assignment that deeply engages undergraduate students, such as directing a play, conducting a musical ensemble, or choreographing a dance piece. Fellows are expected to be active members of the University’s intellectual and artistic community while in residence, and in return, they are provided with the resources and spaces necessary for their work.
Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about this event, the Lewis Center for the Arts, and the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, lectures, and special events presented by the Lewis Center each year, most of them free.
