There Are NO Black Shakers

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

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

Starring:
Aviva Jaye (Phebe Lane)
Cleo Reed (Betty Lane)
Lawrence E. Street (Prime Lane)

There Are No Black Shakers is produced in partnership with the Shaker Heritage Society in Watervliet, NY with special thanks to Executive Director Johanna Batman

There Are No Black Shakers was greatly inspired by historical research thanks to Peter Fay and:
Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary Shaker Eldress, edited and published by Jean McMahon Humez
The People Called Shakers, by Edward D Andrews

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.

Additional support granted by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts

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

September 29, 2024 Premiere at the Shaker Heritage Society 1838 Meeting House

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.