L’UniTheatre’s new artistic director unveils new season
L’UniTheatre, Alberta’s largest French-language theatre, launches its latest season next week with a new artistic director.
Billy (Les Jours de hurlement) (Billy (The Days of Howling)) opens on Oct. 12 under the careful curation of Joelle Prefontaine, 34, a legal native who came to appreciate her mother tongue through theatre.
The child of Francophone parents, Prefontaine was raised speaking French, and went to a French-language school until the eighth grade. But as a teenager determined to make her own decisions, she turned away from the language.
“As a teenager, it was ‘screw French,’ I don’t need it,” Prefontaine recalls. “I stopped speaking French for 10 years.”
But one day, she found herself struggling to reply when her grandmother spoke to her in French. Prefontaine realized she would lose part of her culture without a strong attachment to the language. So she started applying for acting roles in French, launching a voyage that resulted in a master of fine arts in plurilingual theatre practice at the University of Alberta, and numerous French language opportunities as a performer and an educator.
Prefontaine, who took over as L’UniTheatre artistic director earlier this year from Brian Dooley (who has left Edmonton for Montreal), sees the company as a driver of culture in the Francophone community.
“Our job is to create and present theatrical works that reflect, engage, inspire and highlight a community that is in constant evolution,” Prefontaine says. “We have a huge immigrant population (of French speakers), and so it’s important to note which countries and cultures find themselves in the Francophone community, and to make sure we provide a voice and a home for them in our theatre company.”
Prefontaine also hopes to draw an English-speaking audience, who can count on nightly surtitles projected above the stage. One night of each play’s run, there is a French surtitle in use instead, for those who might not be as fluent in French as they would like. (See l’unitheatre.ca for details.)
With a $500,000 annual budget funded through all three levels of government, the theatre, born in 1992, also has a mandate to provide theatre for young audiences and does a lot of outreach with Francophone schools.
This season, Prefontaine has programmed three shows that reflect
her priorities for the company. Billy (Les Jours de hurlement) is by Quebecois playwright Fabien Cloutier — a raw and humorous examination of our tendency to judge, set in the depths of a Canadian winter. In mid-November, Ma Irma kicks off. Written by an English-Canadian writer, Haley McGee (and translated by MarieClaire Marcotte, who stars in the show), the play appealed to Prefontaine because it contains a quirky character, and off-kilter themes that connect whether the audience member speaks French or not.
“Francophone themes are important, and we enjoy talking about language and the importance of keeping culture through language,” Prefontaine says. “But there are universal themes, and it doesn’t matter what language you speak. In this case I was highlighting a translation, which is equally important. I want to share that work.”
Come spring, La Fille du Facteur (the Daughter of the Mailman) arrives as the last mainstage production. Written by Josee Thibeault (a Trois-Rivieres native now living in Edmonton), the play is an homage to her late father, who tramped throughout Edmonton on his mail route. “We all try to understand where we come from, in order to know where we’re going to go,” says Prefontaine, who is directing La Fille du Facteur.
Prefontaine is also directing the company’s show for young audiences this year — Elise Contre L’Extinction Totale, written by local playwright and actor Paula Humby.
The show will tour to B.C. and Saskatchewan and is available for local schools, too.