Latest News

NR13081

The University of Maine at Fort Kent will host Finding Your Voice, a series of French-language monologues, on Saturday, November 23 at 7 p.m. in the Fox Auditorium. The event is free, and is open to the general public.

The evening's presentation is a special collaboration between UMFK's Acadian Archives acadiennes and the Société Nationale de l'Acadie. Finding Your Voice is a pre-Congrès Mondial Acadien 2014 event.

The objective of the monologues is to provide a community gathering where participants listen to the Franco-American language, talk about how they feel when they speak it, and what ways there are to keep the language alive. Being a minority is common for many French Acadians; they have many things in common. The monologues will reflect on the similarities, and bring a sense of pride to the words and the culture.

The monologues will be performed by Grégoire Chabot, a Franco-American playwright and actor from Maine, and Anika Librette, an actress from New Brunswick.

The synopses of the monologues are:

Fernand/ Sacristie

Fernand finds his faith is a wonderful place of refuge and consistency as everything else, including his old house and neighborhood, become harder and harder to recognize. He is proud of the “chapel” he and his family built in their small house and does not understand why no one else seems to see it or appreciate it.

Évangéline/Sacrement

Evangéline in a more modern context; stripped of the Anglo-Victorian traits provided by the decidedly non-Acadian Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. How would she fare in the 21st Century? The monologue tries to provide an answer as Evangéline deals with Jacuzzis, abandonment, and the Super Mart.

Lou/Calice

Lucien can't help thinking about two major events in his life and how he could – or should - have handled them differently. It's hard for him to believe that people could actually say that if they had to do it all over again, they wouldn't change a thing.

Jean Arrache et la mitaine

Jean always has known about the many things he had to do order to get to Heaven. One major one was to never, never set foot in a Protestant church – “une mitaine.” Imagine his surprise (and panic) when his own curé asks him to go there to do a good deed.

An encore performance will be held on Sunday, November 24 at 2 p.m. at Mont-Carmel in Lille.

For further information about the Finding Your Voice performance, please contact UMFK's Acadian Archives acadiennes at 834-7535.