FORT KENT, Maine – Student actors captured Fort Kent Community High School’s third recent championship, winning the weekend’s Class B regional drama competition in Brewer.
The team from Stearns High School of Millinocket was first runner-up.
The Fort Kent group performed “Our Place,” based on the book by Terry Gabbard, and later this month will join other regional finalists at the state Class B championship in Millinocket.
The victory is one of many celebrated by Fort Kent high schoolers in the past month. The high school boys basketball team recently won its first state championship and the ski team celebrated four state victories in a row, with star skier Alden Reardon being the first student at the school to receive four consecutive statewide victories.
And just as the town did when the high school basketball team won its first regional and state championships earlier this year, Fort Kent fire, police, and ambulance vehicles escorted Fort Kent’s drama team into town yesterday afternoon as they drove north from the regional festival in Brewer.
In his nearly 30 years in the theater program, Fort Kent theater director Doug Clapp said the school has won the regional championship about 15 times. They have in the past ranked as high as third place in the statewide competition.
The Maine Drama Festival features eight regional competitions. Each contest winner becomes a finalist in the statewide contest.
These high schools also won Class B titles: Searsport District, Mount Desert Island, Central, Cheverus, Maine Central Institute, Lisbon and Monmouth Academy.
Class A finalists, who will face off at Windham High School, include these schools: Edward Little, Hermon, Kennebunk, Lawrence, Messalonskee, Oceanside Thornton Academy and Yarmouth.
In addition to winning the regional championship, three Fort Kent students were named to the All-Festival Cast: freshmen Troy Celik and Shanelle Rossignol and sophomore Eli Hayes. Judges give this recognition to students across all the festival’s plays. Senior Maddie Morgan also received a special commendation for sound work.
The one-act play involves five vignettes that run the gamut from comedy to tragedy and all revolve around the dock of a lake. A trigger warning preceded the play, informing that audience that some of the subject matter involves drowning and Alzheimer’s. Several other plays at the regional competition included similar content warnings. The play had an impact on some audience members, Clapp said.
“We had a lot of people, when we did it locally, come up to us afterwards and say how much it affected them,” he said. “Some people said they cried.”
The freshmen-heavy group was exuberant at their win. They are a tight-knit crew and were celebrating and singing rock and pop songs together on the bus ride to and from the competition last weekend, Clapp said.
Bridget Celik, who is Troy Celik’s mother, said she is one of the program’s many “drama mamas,” a group which heavily supports the theater’s efforts and raised money for food on the trip. She and the other parents are immensely proud of what the cast has done, she said, adding that they have all worked hard to help raise each other up and ensure they deliver the best performance.
“They all have stated they want to bring ‘Our Place’ to the top and win Doug Clapp his first state title,” she said. “They are unbreakable and unbeatable.”
William Gullick, a junior in the program, said he felt like the cast and crew really outdid themselves over the weekend. Everyone was nervous and the venue was a big jump up from the high school cafeteria where they performed the play for three nights prior to the competition, he said.
Gullick also commended Clapp for his skill and experience in leading them to victory, and said all of the new freshman talent on the cast did an excellent job despite being new to competition plays and acting in general.
“I wholeheartedly believe that when we perform down in Millinocket in about two weeks we will be ready,” Gullick said. “Even if we don’t win, I’m sure we’ll put on a good show.”
The state finals are set for March 20 and 21.
In Class B, Fort Kent is set to perform during the Saturday session at noon. Stearns High School is on 199 State Street in Millinocket. Tickets to each session of the state finals are $12 for adults and $6.50 for students and seniors.