In May 2024, Princeton senior Tanaka Dunbar Ngwara brought a new musical theater work to the Wallace Theater stage that represented a long-awaited dream she held since arriving at Princeton in her first year. Ngwara wrote the book, music, and lyrics — and also designed costumes and provided music direction — for Paivapo ’76 (roughly translated “once upon a time”), a story inspired in part by her family’s history in Domboshava, Zimbabwe, and by the conflict between religion and traditional spirituality during Zimbabwe’s Liberation War. With support from the Alex Adam ’07 Award, Ngwara conducted musical, historical, and performance-based research in London, Edinburgh, and Zimbabwe that prepared her to not only make the show of her dreams a reality but also to submit her ambitious creative work as her senior thesis for her major in the Department of Music and her certificate in the Program in Theater & Music Theater.