Le Theatre petit circle Le Troisième Congrès mondial acadien Cheticamp Nova Scotia Roger Mullin, Ted Cavanagh, Richard Kroeker
Setting:Any place where amazing winds blow, the local people give them a name. In Cheticamp, Nova Scotia the springtime southeasters are called Suettes. As often as five times a month the winds in Cheticamp reach speeds of 200 kilometers an hour.They speed down off the plateau and whip across the old playground behind the school.All shingles in the town are battened down, double nailed and tightly overlapped.Trucks with semi-trailers stop traveling on the roads. The town of Cheticamp in Nova Scotia was officially founded by Acadians returning a generation after their 1755 expulsion by the British.Their deportation to Louisiana and other French colonies is described by Long- fellow in his epic poem Evangeline. In Cheticamp, stories are told of Aca- dians avoiding deportation by living in the valley out of sight of the British Navy — land left unsettled by the British because of the wind. Over time the French-speaking community has developed a fishing economy and a way of dealing with the windy landscape. In 2004, the town hosted Le Troisième Congrès mondial acadien cel- ebrating 400 years of European settlement in Canada. Festivities were organized in support of one hundred family reunions throughout the province. In Cheticamp, the church and the adjacent school contain three indoor spaces suitable for festival performances. Organizers added some temporary outdoor sites. and talked optimistically of a permanent summer theatre camp in the old playground behind the school.
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local architecture | in a global world
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