ABSTRACT

Adapted by daughter/mother team Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon, Parable of the Sower: The Opera is based on Octavia E. Butler’s novel in which protagonist Lauren Olamina charts her journey towards a new spirituality in apocalyptic times. This chapter examines the impact of the opera, with its Black congregational sound, on one family from the perspective of sister, niece, daughter, and author Alexis Pauline Gumbs who, like the protagonist, is developing a spiritual center through which to survive these changing times.