Porchfest 2025 brings the University and community together for a walkable feast of music

The fourth annual Princeton Porchfest united the University and residents from the local community in a walkable feast of music on April 26. Presented by the Arts Council of Princeton, the free festival served as an all-day showcase of local talent across 15 porches in town and at Maclean House on campus.

New offerings this year included a Porchfest edition of the Arts Council’s Story & Verse Open Mic series, which featured a spoken word performance by ceramic artist Roberto Lugo, as well as an official afterparty on Palmer Square Green.

“Porchfest brings our community together through a shared love of music, offering students an exciting opportunity to celebrate and showcase local talent alongside their neighbors,” said Melissa Mercuro, associate director for community relations in the Office of Community and Regional Affairs. She called the event “a true example of community collaboration.”

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Watch: Princeton Research Day

Princeton Research Day highlights scholarly and creative work by undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and early-career researchers. PRD participants created short videos summarizing their research.

Watch PRD videos on mediacentral.princeton.edu

Prospect House spaces will be named for 12 people who ‘helped shape the University and the world’

A dozen spaces inside the recently renovated Prospect House will be named in honor of a range of individuals who “persevered and excelled” in the face of adversity.

Those honored include faculty, alumni and others with connections to Princeton’s history, reaching across time from a formerly enslaved man who became an influential pastor and author to the trailblazing lawyer who as a student filed a suit that opened Princeton’s last all-male eating clubs to women.

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Reading of Damned to Marriage by Violet Prete ’25

A theatricalized staged reading of a new play by Princeton senior Violet Prete. Damned to Marriage follows Mary, who uses artificial intelligence to go back in time to when her parents met and dated in college in 1975 to retell the story of two lovers meeting while at school and how their marriage eventually fails. She breaks them up and urges them not to have kids. The play is a story of young love through the eyes of a time travel dream scheme that is fueled by artificial intelligence.

Reserve free tickets to Damned to Marriage on tickets.princeton.edu.

Saturday, May 10

7:00 PM

Kerr Studio at Lewis Arts Complex 

Exhibition

"The Most Formidable Weapon Against Errors: The Sid Lapidus ’59 Collection & the Age of Reason,” 

Princeton University Library is offering curator-led tours of its new exhibition “The Most Formidable Weapon Against Errors: The Sid Lapidus ’59 Collection & the Age of Reason,” which documents the new conceptions of human liberty, political order, and scientific reasoning that emerged in the Anglo-American intellectual world between the 17th and 19th centuries and celebrates the collecting achievements of Sid Lapidus, Class of 1959.

Free and open to the public.

On display through June 8

Firestone Library, Milberg Gallery

Exhibition

Roberto Lugo / Orange and Black

Roberto Lugo / Orange and Black features vases that draw on the shapes, techniques, and decorative motifs of ancient Greek vases in order to tell personal and communal stories of contemporary social and political oppression. Shown alongside Lugo’s vases are a selection of ancient Greek vessels from the collections of the Princeton University Art Museum that inspired him, creating a temporal, visual, and social juxtaposition between the ancient and contemporary vessels. Ultimately, the exhibition encourages consideration of Lugo’s place within the long history of ceramic production and use, as well as the crucial role the medium has played in facilitating storytelling, societal interaction, and humankind’s everyday lived experience.

Free and open to the public.

On display through July 6

Art@Bainbridge

Images

Porchfest - Photo by Matthew Raspanti, Office of Communications

Prospect House - Photo by Matthew Raspanti, Office of Communications

Robert Lugo - Photo by Joe Kramm, Courtesy of R & Company