Arrow St. Arts, Cambridge. **** out of 5. A notable coffee table book of 2000 celebrated the history and role of haberdashery among African-American women with stunning B&W Michael Cunningham portraits and text – culled from interviews with “hat queens” – by Craig Marberry. Crowns was by any standard unlikely source material for a play, but Regina Taylor’s gospel revue has been performed everywhere, and rarely better I’d guess than in this Moonbox Productions revival. A seven-person ensemble, teeming with talent, delivers a parade of anecdotes, bon mots, and wisdom with panache and utter conviction. They don’t have to tell us why one’s chapeau choice is definitional and life-affirming; they embody it, with humor and warmth, and the debt to their African heritage is proudly acknowledged. Sentimentality always threatens, yes, but the fine director Regine Vital keeps that within bounds. Interspersed with all the “hattitude” is plenty of church-crowd call-and-response and all your favorite spirituals, performed infectiously under David Coleman’s musical direction. A tip of the hat, too, to the subtle choreography of Kurt Douglas. There’s a framing story, with an urban teen (the puckish Mirrorajah) packed off to Darlington, SC and slowly learning to appreciate down-home culture, but it doesn’t matter or intrude much. What you take away are the moments of deepest faith, not just in God but in oneself: Lovely Hoffman’s heartbreaking rendition of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow”; Kaedon Gray’s portrait of someone’s daddy from vitality to senescence; the expansive “Take Me to the Water” from Mildred E. Walker and company. The 90 minutes fly by but don’t fly away. Lifting spirits through May 4. (Cast photo by Chelcy Garrett)