Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping

Reverend Billy together with the Church of Stop Shopping is a radical performance community based in New York City. the Stop Shopping Choir is accompanied by a comic preacher, Reverend Billy, made by performer William Billy Talen. The philosophy of the Church of Stop Shopping surrounds the imminent "Shopocalypse", which assumes the end of humanity will come about through manic consumerism.

The Stop Shopping Choir accompanies Reverend Billy & stages guerrilla theater category actions, singing on the property of the Disney stores, Monsanto facilities, and Trump Tower, among others. They are often considered part of the Culture jamming movement.

The multiple uses the content from their direct actions to earn songs that are performed on concert stages and in cabarets. The director of these shows is church co-founder Savitri D. Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir routinely perform at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater in New York City.

Savitri D, church co-founder and theatrical director

Savitri D née Durkee is the co-founder and director of the Church of Stop Shopping, as well as Talen's partner. She was born in Taos, New Mexico in 1972 and raised at The Lama Foundation, one of the earliest and longest lasting intentional spiritual communities in the US, founded by her parents, Steven and Barbara Durkee.

Savitri D began dancing and performing at the University of Montana, studied at the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and co-founded a dance collective called The Zen Monkey Project. After moving to New York City in 1997, she staged her play SKY/NO SKY at 57 Walker Street.

In 2000, she was a producer at The Culture Project, a theater in the East Village, where Talen was staging early Reverend Billy performances. She took over sources of The Church of Stop Shopping performances from the dramatist Tony Torn in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001, and married Talen the next year.

Under Savitri D's leadership, the Church won the Alpert Award for Theater and the Edwin Booth Award from the City University of New York.