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New Francophone work digs into Maine Roots
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Penobscot Theatre Company has commissioned Atlanta-based, French-speaking theatre company Théâtre du Rêve (Theatre of the Dream) to create an original work inspired by Maine poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie.” The piece, “Je Ne Suis Pas Evangeline (I am not Evangeline),” will be the final offering of the Digitus Theatrum Main Course subscription series available to stream from Thursday, April 22, through Sunday, May 9.
“I fell head over heels in love with Maine more than a decade ago, when I toured with a French-language play to Portland,” says Théâtre du Rêve Producing Artistic Director Caryoln Cook. “I love the place, I love the people, I love the sense of rootedness, and I love the history. I’m thrilled to be working with Penobscot Theatre Company on this dream project.”
Paul Revere, (born about January 1, 1735, Boston, Massachusetts [U.S.] died May 10, 1818, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.), folk hero of the American Revolution whose dramatic horseback ride on the night of April 18, 1775, warning Boston-area residents that the British were coming, was immortalized in a ballad by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
His father, Apollos Rivoire (later changed to Revere), was a Huguenot refugee who had come to Boston as a child and had been apprenticed to a silversmith. This craft he taught his son Paul Revere, who became one of America’s greatest artists in silver. As a boy Revere received sufficient education to enable him later to read the difficult metallurgical books of his period. Although it was in metal that Revere did most of his work, his energy and skill (and the necessity of supporting an ever-growing family) turned him in many directions. He not only made silver articles but also crafted surgical instruments, sold spectacles, replaced missing teeth
William Federer: Battles of Lexington & Concord: Patriots and Self-Defense — The Patriot Post patriotpost.us - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from patriotpost.us Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
American history reveals that a single shot ignited the American War for Independence, in 1775. In the Spring of that year, between the very late hours of April 18th and the wee morning hours of the 19th, Massachusetts men and boys got out of their beds with an intent to stand up to a formidable enemy. They gathered their powder horns, muskets, and shot and went out to Lexington Green. There they waited in the dark morning chill for the dreaded British troops who marched rapidly toward Lexington. Earlier, in the middle of the night, the cries of danger had swept through the Massachusetts countryside to warn citizens that the British troops were on the march.
(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
Two hundred and forty-six years ago this evening, a prominent Boston silversmith set out on a ride that would be immortalized by America’s finest poet. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was looking for a subject to write about that illustrated American virtues and concluded that Paul Revere’s ride on April 18, 1775, to alert Sam Adams and John Hancock that the British regulars were coming to arrest them in Lexington was a perfect allegory.
Longfellow wrote the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” in 1860 when no one was alive who remembered the actual events. And that was a good thing. Longfellow took enormous liberties with the subject matter. But he wasn’t trying to achieve historical accuracy. Instead, Longfellow wanted to say something profound about the American character and the entire revolutionary generation: that they were willing to suffer and die for something greater than themselves.