About Parable of the Sower

Created by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon
Co-directed by Eric Ting and Signe V. Harriday 
Based on the novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

In a dream pairing of artistic personalities, two titans of Black American music collaborate on a new “congregational opera” based on the work of an iconic and revolutionary Black author. Singer, composer, and activist Toshi Reagon and award-winning vocalist, composer, and scholar Bernice Johnson Reagon bring science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler’s deeply resonant and startlingly prescient Parable of the Sower to life in an evening-length opera directed by Cal Shakes’ Eric Ting and Signe V. Harriday. Butler’s 1993 book and its sequel follow a young Black woman through a dystopian, apocalyptic American future, planting the seeds of a new religion that is fueled by empathy and collective action. 

Though the novels reveal some of our darker impulses as humans, in the end, the Reagons’ message is one of hope, expressed through the communal act of music making: “Don’t forget: Octavia is writing about the universe,” Johnson Reagon has said. “She’s saying that our destiny is to be amongst the stars…. We’re a part of something amazing.”

Join us for a post-performance Q&A on Friday, May 5. Free for ticketholders of that performance.

This event is part of Cal Performances’ Illuminations: “Human and Machine” programming for the 2022–23 season. 

Run time for this concert is approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes without intermission.