Petula's profile
Petula is a multi-talented artistic being. She is a writer, performer, creator, producer, recording artist, non-profit executive, and arts administrator. She brings her compelling creative envisioning to everything she works on.
Petula has written for various publications like Baltimore’s former alternative weekly City Paper, The Afro-American Newspapers, and Baltimore Magazine. As a storyteller and performance poet Petula has performed her suggestive storytelling with her band in tow for audiences up and down the East Coast, creatively exploring ideas around sexuality and sensuality onstage with grace, humor, charm, and a disarming ability to relate to every kind of audience. Petula has also been featured at signature Baltimore events like Artscape, Stoop Storytelling, The Baltimore Book Festival, ArtsLab, and Charm City Kitty Club.
After spending much time onstage in front of audiences of all kinds, Petula grew to love backstage just as much, and moved into live theatrical production, event production and artist booking. She has curated, directed and produced events at most major venues in Baltimore, including The Creative Alliance, The Motor House, Arena Players, The Arch Social Club, The Reginald Lewis Museum and Metro Gallery .
Petula also returned to writing pursuits, and released her memoir entitled “She’s Such A Bright Girl: An American Story” in June 2018. She recounts an upbringing full of conflict and tension centered around colorism. The book won an Honorable Mention at the North Street Books Prize for creative non-fiction, and throughout 2018 and 2019 Petula could often be found appearing at branches of the Enoch Pratt Library and at other community events talking about her book and other themes related to race.
Petula brought her diverse and innovative artistic vision, her non-profit executive experience, and her love for Baltimore into a single role when she became director of Community Engagement for the Baltimore Rock Opera Society (BROS) in 2019. BROS, a community theater that has been part of the city for over a decade is well-known for very elaborate, over-the-top original theatrical works that were White-centered onstage, behind the scenes and artistically. Petula's role includes assisting with creating programming that spotlights creatives of color in content, onstage, and behind the scenes. To execute that programming, Petula tapped into the numerous creatives in her network, using her presence to carve out a "safer space" for those artists to bring their authentic selves, who did not always feel BROS was a welcome place for what they had to offer. Petula was managing director and executive producer of a series of virtual concerts in 2020 called Rock Opera 101, and she provided narrative voiceovers for those concerts. In 2021 Petula served as Executive Producer and Co-Creative director of a theatrical concert called “Funktopia - An Intergalactic Tribute To Funk and Hip Hop” that featured hip hop and soul music that celebrates all things funky. She led a crew of passionate creatives who brought a beautiful world of music, color and freedom to the stage called "Funktopia". This show was markedly different from what much Baltimore performance art offers.
