Artist Talk with Toshi Reagon after Parable of The Sower

Written By alisha b. wormsley

Please join us for a post show conversation with Alisha B Wormsley and Toshi Reagon following the Friday, March 31st performance. ( Image above is the quilt made by Wormsley for imagery to represent the opera in Pittsburgh.)

Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower
Created by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon
Music and Lyrics by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon
Directed by Signe V. Harriday & Eric Ting 

Based on the classic sci-fi novel by Afro-futurist author Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower is a genre-defying, triumphant, mesmerizing work of rare power and beauty that illuminates deep insights on gender, race, and the future of human civilization. This fully staged “congregational” opera brings together over 30 original anthems drawn from 200 years of Black music to recreate Butler’s sci-fi, Afrofuturist masterpiece live on stage. With music and lyrics composed by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon, this compelling work chronicles the spiritual awakening of Lauren Olamina amidst an America plagued by the products of unrelenting greed, systemic injustice and climate change denial, giving life to Butler’s acclaimed science fiction novel. 

alisha b. wormsley
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Shrines for the Familiar: Radical World Building through Collective Dreaming and Art, a keynote at Franklin & Marshall College