Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower: An Opera by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon

Co-presented with the Yale Schwarzman Center
A triumphant, mesmerizing work of rare power and beauty that illuminates insights on gender, race, and the future of human civilization, Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower is “one helluva rock’n’roller-coaster ride.” (Vibe Magazine) This fully staged opera created by Toshi Reagan in collaboration with her mother, Bernice Johnson Reagon, brings together more than 30 original anthems drawn from 200 years of black music to recreate Butler’s sci-fi, Afrofuturist masterpiece. Parable of the Sower explores climate change, political division and other timely issues through the spiritual awakening of Lauren Olamina, a 15-year-old Black girl in a not-too-distant future of climate catastrophe and economic devastation.