There Are NO Black Shakers:
A Contemporary Folk Opera
produced in partnership with the Shaker Heritage Society in Watervliet, NY
PREMIERE: SEPTEMBER 29, 2024

Written and directed by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak with the assistance of Gary Sunshine
Musical Direction by Gwen Laster
Music by Gwen Laster (violin), Damon Banks (bass), Patrick Jones (guitar/banjo) and Todd Isler (percussion)

Starring:
Aviva Jaye
Cleo Reed
Lawrence E. Street

There Are No Black Shakers is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

There Are NO Black Shakers, rehearsal at Cassandra Studios, Beacon, NY
Vocalists; Aviva Jaye, Cleo Reed & Lawrence E. Street
Gwen Laster, violin; Damon Banks, bass; Patrick Jones, guitar

There Are NO Black Shakers is a contemporary folk opera re-interpreting traditional Shaker hymns to tell the very true story of Prime Lane, a free Black man who joined the Shaker Society in Albany in 1802. Nine years later he renounced the faith, attempting to take his family with him. When his daughters Betty and Phebe elected to stay in the covenant as Shaker sisters, Prime sued the Shakers. Not for custody of his daughters, but for theft of his property. Born to a formerly enslaved woman whose freedom he bought, Prime could argue that the Shakers were holding his slaves.

There Are NO Black Shakers gives voice to the silent history of the painfully gradual abolition of slavery of African Americans in New York State that, while resisted by many Abolitionist groups like the Shakers, remains invisible in the dominant historical narrative.