Much of the opera is devoted to a fraught few weeks as Lauren pleads with her family and neighbors to prepare for the inevitability that their wall will be breached. Only a wall stands between them and the growing fierceness of a society ravaged by ecological collapse, rampant corporate takeover of public resources, drugs, violence, and widening economic disparity. The show opens with Lauren living with her family in a protected enclave outside of Los Angeles. Reagon's Parable of the Sower opera is based on the dystopian, speculative novel with the same title by Butler, about a fifteen-year-old African American empath named Lauren Olamina. Butler's book, though written in 1993, takes place in 2024 and prophecies climate disasters, like fires and drought, and social breakdown. “This journey has been a testament to the power of the arts as a tool for social change,” said Marcia Minter, cofounder and executive director of Indigo Arts Alliance. Parable Path Maine was collectively supported by Bowdoin, Indigo Arts Alliance, Portland Ovations, and the Maine Humanities Council. These events were like stepping stones to the performance of her opera to a sold-out theater on April 14. Since last summer, Reagon has made several visits to Bowdoin and Maine, drawing together activists, students, artists, performers, and others to engage with Parable-related issues through creativity and community. The McKeen fellowship is meant to introduce a distinguished visitor prominent in public discourse to broaden the College's exploration of the common good. She is the second Joseph McKeen Visiting Fellow Bowdoin has hosted-the first was bestselling author and president emeritus of the American Enterprise Institute Arthur C. Throughout the past year, Reagon has been leading a community-based project- Parable Path Maine-based on the themes of her opera: the effects of environmental ruin and inequality, and the ideas of embracing and creating change as essential to the human condition.
View from backstage at Parable of the Sower.
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