Cultural Thursday features Tanzania

Central Lakes College will host its next Cultural Thursday program noon to 1 p.m. Nov. 5 as a free Zoom webinar.

Forestview Middle School English language arts teacher Helene Danielson will present her life-changing experience she had in Tanzania. Her presentation is titled “Tanzania: Teaching and Growing.”

Danielson spent the month of June 2019 teaching English to under-resourced children in Tanzania. She came home filled with gratitude and hope, a desire to simplify life and a disdain for plastic bags, a news release stated. Through a partnership between Concordia College and the Grumeti Fund, community outreach is provided to children in villages bordering the Grumeti Game Reserve, just north of Serengeti National Park. Danielson will discuss her experiences with the children she served, as well as the animals she saw while living on the game reserve. Experiences included seeing elephants every day and baboons that stole supplies.

To register for the event, visit tinyurl.com/y3szc9nb . After registering, people will immediately receive a link to the webinar. In addition, a reminder email will be sent a day before the event.

For questions about this presentation or the Cultural Thursdays Series, contact Tracey Kloeckl-Jimenez at 218-855-8183.

Brainerd theater presents ‘Home for the Holidays’

A virtual holiday variety show is next up on the calendar for Brainerd Community Theatre. “Home for the Holidays” will be streamed in mid-December, and the theater is hosting virtual auditions for the show.

“It appears we’ll all be staying home this holiday season,” Theater Director Patrick Spradlin stated in a news release. “We wanted to present something that fits with this current reality.

“The show is a new take on an older idea. ... My late colleague Dennis Lamberson produced a show called ‘Yuletide Revelry’ that was a popular holiday offering. This seemed like a good time to bring back this concept, although in a wholly different format.”

The show will consist of songs, skits, stories, holiday greetings and connection between and among friends and family. It’s open to anyone interested and able to submit a video audition.

“Video record a song you want to sing, an instrument you want to play, a skit you’ve written; anything that fits the holiday season and would be appropriate to a general audience,” Spradlin stated. “We’ll select as many as we can from the entries we receive to include in the show. We will also shoot segments from our Chalberg Theatre stage to be part of the show.

“We’ve been using a lot of video production for theater productions during the pandemic. It’s a different, and exciting, way to work.”

The entire show will be livestreamed in mid-December on dates to be announced.

“Our plan is to present this show for free to everyone in the community,” Spradlin stated. “We hope it helps connect everyone at a time when normal connections aren’t possible. And, since it’s a streamed event, anyone in the world will be able to watch it.”

Those interested in being part of “Home for the Holidays” should submit a video recording to George Marsolek at george.marsolek@clcmn.edu . Deadline for entries is Nov. 9. The selected entries will be made part of the streamed event.

For more information email Marsolek or call him at 218-855-8204.