Contact Information: For immediate release
Jeannine Lauber June 4, 2003
Story Productions
207-627-3137

New Support and Funding Helps Friends Member
Bring Shaker Documentary to TV

Casco, ME
Three rounds of recent funding and a commitment from a national distributor are helping a long-time Friends member produce a documentary about the Shakers. The funding comes from grants awarded by the Maine and New Hampshire Humanities Councils. The support comes from American Public Television (APTV) which is the largest distributor of programming to public television stations in the country.

"This is wonderful news," said filmmaker Jeannine Lauber of Casco, ME, who has worked on the project for 2 years. She is a member of the Friends of the Shakers, and Executive Producer of the film. "The funding has helped me involve some of the finest Shaker scholars in the country in the early stages of developing a script," she added. Those scholars include Friends members, Flo Morse, Mary Ann Haagen, Jerry Grant, Sharon Koomler, and Scott Swank. Lauber is also consulting with authors Steven Stein (The Shaker Experience in America) and Jean Humez (Mother’s First Born Daughters.)

American Public Television, based in Boston, has agreed to market and distribute the one-hour documentary. "My goal is to get the incredible story of America's Shakers on national television by the fall of 2006, and APTV is helping me make that happen," said Lauber. What makes this documentary different, she says, is that it will examine the history of Shakerism through the eyes of its founder, Mother Ann Lee. The voices of the people who will tell this story will primarily be the Shakers themselves. The script will rely heavily on the 1816 Testimonies, Shaker journals from the Revival Period (1830’s – 1850’s) and interviews with all four Sabbathday Lake, Maine Shakers.

Filming of the Maine Shakers is scheduled for this October with West Side AV Studios of North Conway New Hamsphire who have been involved with the project from it's beginning.

“I’m honored that so many people are helping me bring this compelling story about faith and American history to life, but what pleases me most is that the voices of the Sabbathday Lake Shakers will be heard throughout the land. That really hasn’t happened before, which I think is sad, because no one understands the history of Shakerism or Mother Ann better than they,” said Lauber.

 

Jeannine Lauber and Olof Ekbergh of West Side AV Studios with Sister June of the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community