The 11th Annual Jubilee Festival of Arts and Humanities will begin today and will feature daily events in the weeks to follow.The first week of the festival will kick off with the Fletcher Lecture Series, which will take place at 6 p.m. in Peltier Hall with a preceding reception at 5:30 p.m. The speaker this year is Sam Pickering, a University of Connecticut English professor whose teaching styles were the inspiration for the character Mr. Keating in the 1989 film, “Dead Poet’s Society.”

Sunday’s events include several musical acts, including Carol Britt and Friends. Carol Britt is a performing organist, harpsichordist and director of the School of Fine Arts’ Division of Music. These performances will take place at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Thibodaux.

Also on Sunday, there will be a performance by folklore musician Spencer Bohren, known for his performance of folk, blues, gospel and country music for all ages using instruments including guitars, lap steels and banjos. This will take place at 7 p.m. in the Bollinger Memorial Student Union.

There will be an off-campus poetry reading by short story writer Ed Lasalle on Tuesday. This will take place at L.E. Fletcher Technical College Library in Houma.

On Wednesday at 9:40 a.m., 11:55 a.m. and 12:55 p.m. will be performances by Singers of United Lands in the Cotillion Ballroom. This year’s performers are from Kenya, South Korea, Latvia and Chile. There will be additional performances by SOUL on March 19 and March 20 in various locations on campus.

Also on March 19 will be the debut of the Nicholls Players’ production of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” resurrected this spring after its postponing in the fall due to Hurricane Gustav. This will take place in Talbot Theater at 7:30 p.m. with a reception sponsored by the Student Programming Association Multicultural Committee. The production will also run March 20 and 21 at 7:30 p.m. and on March 22 at 3 p.m.

On March 20 the first Louisiana Swamp Stomp Festival will be held on campus from noon until 11 p.m. and again March 21 from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m.

There will be free admission for Nicholls students until 3 p.m. on March 20 and after that admission will be $10.

Starting now through April 30, there will be a visual historic display in the Ellender Memorial Library archives room from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The display will celebrate the 60th anniversary of Nicholls, featuring artifacts and memorabilia spanning from 1948 to the present.

More information about Jubilee can be found through the Nicholls Web site at www.nicholls.edu/jubilee.