Event

As it is in Heaven

The Everyman Repertory Theater is proud to present As it is in Heaven, a nine-woman play about a Shaker community in Kentucky in the mid-nineteenth century by Arlene Hutton at Waterman's this summer. The play focuses on the spiritual and practical aspects of the Shaker movement and depicts how a religious community is changed when a non-believer has an ecstatic experience.

The 1830's Shaker society of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky has very ordered ways. Its once dramatic form of worship has developed into routine. The arrival of a young girl named Fanny upsets this harmony; some of the Sisters suspect her to be a "winter Shaker," one who suddenly converts when life gets too hard on the farm. But then Fanny sees angels in the meadow, and soon all the young women in the community are receiving spiritual "gifts". The community's leaders question Fanny's intentions and honesty: is this a resurgence of the original Shaker spirit or something manufactured by Fanny so that she can remain with the Shakers?

The production will feature a number of well-known and less well-known Shaker hymns, sung acapella by the cast as well as dances specifically researched and choreographed for this production by the music and dance director for the show, Jennifer Hodgson. Directed by the Everyman Repertory Theatre's artistic director Paul Hodgson, the production boasts a cast of fine, professional actresses from the Midcoast area, including Carol Williams, Mim Bird, Eva Hopkins, Julia Clapp, Grace Bauer, Rebecca Cox, Dagney Ernest, Jennifer Hodgson and Ann Foskett. As it is in Heaven was performed in coordination with the Farnsworth Museum's exhibit on Shakers this winter.