Newtown Quakers to Show Film About Quaker Benjamin Lay, 1650s English Abolitionist

Newtown Quakers to Show Film About Quaker Benjamin Lay, 1650s English Abolitionist

Newtown Quakers will show the film “Becoming Benjamin Lay” at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 31 at the Quaker Meetinghouse, 219 Court Street, Newtown. Following the film will be a discussion with playwright Marcus Rediker and director Tony Buba, Worship based on expectant silence will follow at 11:00 a.m. All are welcome.

The film is a documentary about the production of the award-winning London play, “The Return of Benjamin Lay,” by decorated playwright Naomi Wallace and historian Marcus Rediker. In it, the English Quaker Benjamin Lay—"shepherd, sailor, revolutionary and the British Empire's first revolutionary abolitionist—returns from the grave almost 300 years after his death, as feisty and unpredictable as ever.”

Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh. He has written or edited seventeen books, including The Many-Headed Hydra (2000, with Peter Linebaugh); The Slave Ship (2007); The Fearless Benjamin Lay (2017); and Freedom Ship (2025). His writings have won numerous awards and been published in twenty languages worldwide. He wrote the play, The Return of Benjamin Lay, with Naomi Wallace. His most recent documentary film, directed by Tony Buba, is Becoming Benjamin Lay (2026). For more information, visit www.marcusrediker.com.

Tony Buba has made over forty films. Buba’s “Mon Valley Trilogy" was purchased by the Carnegie Museum of Art and is part of their permanent collection. Buba’s work has been showcased in one-person shows at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Anthology Film Archives, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and more than 100 museums and universities. He has received fellowships from the NEA, AFI, and the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations. Buba’s many awards include Alfred I. DuPont Columbia University Award and Pennsylvania Media Artist of the Year.

Newtown Friends Meeting, co-founded by "Peaceable Kingdom" painter and Quaker minister, Edward Hicks in 1815, is open to all who wish to attend.