The Stonington Opera House felt less like a theater and more like a sacred space one night in late May. Mary Ann Haagen stood before the assembly and began to sing a song composed in 1811 by a member of the Shaker community in Canterbury, N.H.

Haagen’s bell-like voice rang clear as she gestured with her arms and sang, “In love and peace we will increase/In union we’re advancing/With features bright we will unite/We find no harm in dancing.”

Haagen is a music scholar, a teacher, and a member of the Enfield Shaker Singers, based in the New Hampshire town of the same name. She was in Stonington that evening, along with her husband, Charlie, to lead island residents and other participants in a community singalong of Shaker hymns, the plain, starkly moving songs composed over the decades by the religious sect commonly known for its furniture-making, its celibacy, its pacifism and – yes – its music.

“I’ve always been interested in the way music functions in communities,” said Haagen. “Shaker hymns are meant to be sung in groups. When a Shaker composed a song, it was considered a ‘gift,’ received from God and shared with the community.”

The Stonington Opera House is celebrating all things Shaker this summer, in anticipation of its production of “As It Is in Heaven,” a play about a group of 19th century Shaker women. The play, written by Arlene Hutton and directed by Opera House Arts co-artistic director Carol Estey, will premiere Wednesday, July 2, and will run through July 6.

Estey first became interested in the Shakers through her friend Judy McCaskey, a fellow island resident and a longtime volunteer with the Sabbathday Lake Shakers living in New Gloucester. Sabbathday Lake is the last remaining active Shaker community in the world; there are four members living there.

“[Judy’s] enthusiasm and support led me to Mary Ann,” said Estey. “I just fell in love with the spirit of singing and moving.”

Haagen, now a visiting scholar in the music department at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., was introduced to the Shakers in the 1970s. She taught music in public schools in Vermont and New York for more than 30 years, but in her spare time she pursued her study of the musical traditions of the Shakers. It’s a tradition that stretches back to the 1780s, after the first Shakers, led by founder Mother Ann Lee, left Manchester, England, to establish their faith on American soil.

“The Shakers used their singing as a form of worship, as a tool to build community, and as a means of converting people,” said Haagen. “Sometimes it was wordless; often there were lyrics. It’s a very unique musical tradition within Protestantism.”

There’s a mystical element to Shaker music; people would receive a song as a “gift,” hearing a melody within a dream, or in some cases in a waking vision.

“One described it as seeing ‘angels before the throne of God,'” said Haagen. “Another saw it written in gold on the ceiling. And then they would share the song they received with the community.”

Shakers gained their name because of the vigorous physical activity they undertook while worshiping; the Quakers quaked, but the Shakers shook and whirled, rolled, leaped and broke into peals of ecstatic laughter. In the 19th century, they added a more choreographed dance element to their songs, one that bears a resemblance to traditional English country dancing – not unlike contradancing, a tradition that remains popular to this day.

“Dance was a visual representation of community and union,” said Haagen. “They wanted to create a perfect union of male and female, and it was a physical representation of the great spirit – the gift of union. It’s no longer part of the Shaker tradition, though. They withdrew the ‘gift’ in the 1890s.”

Those gifts were a source of joy for Shakers, but they also created some tension within the close-knit communities, when one member might have more of a gift for song than others, and feelings of jealousy or anger might arise. That tension is one of the themes explored in “As It Is in Heaven,” which focuses on nine women in a Shaker community in 1837.

“The play deals with the issues that arose when the younger members of the group received gifts, but the elders did not,” said Estey. “It’s about mistrust, and trying to keep order. They were a hierarchical society, despite having this utopian element. They tried to honor everyone’s unique spiritual gifts.”

“As It Is in Heaven” premiered in 2001, and has since found new life on college campuses and in community theater. The Stonington production features singing and dancing prepared by Haagen, and a cast comprised of both equity actors and local talent. It’s set in Kentucky, but it’s been slightly reconfigured for the Stonington production to be set in a more generalized location, so it’s feasible that the action could take place here in Maine.

“It’s a fascinating play, because while it is a historical play, it’s not bogged down in the history of it,” said Estey. “It’s about the life of a community and the communal dynamic.”

In keeping with the emphasis on community, a special performance of “As It Is in Heaven” is set for 7 p.m. Monday, July 7, at the Shaker Meeting House at Sabbathday Lake. The $35 ticket benefits the Shaker community there.

“A common misconception about the Shakers is that they are somehow dead, or should be referred to in past tense,” said Haagen. “They are very much still alive, and it’s through things like this that the tradition stays alive.”

“As It Is in Heaven” premieres at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 2, at the Stonington Opera House and runs through July 6. For ticket information, call 367-2788, or visit www.operahousearts.org. For more information on the performance at Sabbathday Lake, call 926-4597.

eburnham@bangordailynews.net

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MORE ON TAP AT THE STONINGTON OPERA HOUSE THIS SUMMER

. July 9: Juggler and physical comedian Mike Miclon performs for children and adults.

. July 16: Brother Blue, aka Hugh Morgan Hill, PhD., the official storyteller of Cambridge, Mass.

. July 24-27: 8th annual Deer Isle Jazz Fest: “New Orleans: Culture and Crisis” is the theme; July 24, a screening of “When the Levees Broke,” a Spike Lee film about the effects of Hurricane Katrina; July 25, a performance by the Donald Harrison Quartet, featuring Harrison, a Mardi Gras Indian Chief; July 26, a master class and performance by the Hot 8; July 27, parade featuring Harrison and the Hot 8.

. July 30: Dance performance by Lorraine Chapman.

. Aug. 2: An evening with Sam Lardner and Barcelona, with guest Juanito Pascual.

. Aug 6: Indonesian Gamelan music and puppetry with Gender Wayang, with Christine Southworth and Evan Ziporyn.

. Aug 7: Reading by poet Daniel Hoffman.

. Aug. 14-17: Shakespeare in Stonington presents “Macbeth.”

. Aug. 20: Klezmer music from Bangor’s Tzena! Tzena!