Thomas and Beulah

THE POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA announces it's inaugural installment of Poets in the Playhouse on Friday, May 4th, 7pm at Queens College. This year’s program will be a theatrical adaptation, staged by Queens College students, of the Pulitzer-prize winning collection, Thomas & Beulah by Rita Dove. The performance will include music and movement (dance). Ms. Dove will be in attendance and participate in a moderated Q&A with cast and crew after the show.

Thomas and Beulah tells the semi-fictionalized chronological story of Rita Dove’s maternal grandparents in the form of a two-part book of narrative poems set during the period of the Great Migration - the movement of 6 million African Americans out of the south from 1910 to 1970. Her grandfather Thomas is featured in “Mandolin,” the book’s first part, and his wife, Beulah is the focus of “Canary in Bloom,” the second part. The two sections are meant to offer the male and female perspectives on some seventy years of American history. “This isn’t simply a reading of Rita Dove’s poems, but our attempt to invent a new form,” explains playwright and QC professor Richard Schotter. “Tyler Rivenbark, an MFA student, has shaped the poems through the use of music, movement, slides, etc. A director/choreographer will further dramatize the material. As far as I know, this is a first for Thomas and Beulah.” Friday, May 4, 7 pm Free and open to the public Queens College—The Little Theater, King Hall, Room 115 Map/directions: http://www.qc.cuny.edu/ABOUT/DIRECTIONS/Pages/default.aspx Rita Dove’s Thomas and Beulah Adapted for the stage by Tyler Rivenbark Directed and choreographed by Nicco Annan Music by Barry Mitterhoff