 The curtain has risen at Central Lakes College in Brainerd as the Brainerd Community Theater is hosting this year's American Association of Community Theater Region Five Festival. Clayton Castle was there as the festival kicked off Friday morning. It's showtime this weekend at Central Lakes College as Brainerd Community Theater is hosting the regional festival of the American Association of Community Theatres. Everything you can imagine. We have plays, we have, they are adjudicated by national adjudicators, workshops, banquets. We have a lot of networking areas that we we are able to network with other theater companies and it's a really good time and it's a full weekend of theater. This is the first time the Region Five Festival has been held in Brainerd and organizers say that being selected to host is a high honor. Well we have never done anything like this before so just the enormity of it is somewhat overwhelming to us in a way but it's a huge honor to be selected for it. We had to put in a bid with the AACT American Association of Community Theatres and we were accepted as the regional host so there were others who bid for it. We were selected and we're very happy to have been granted that honor. The festival welcomes community theater groups from Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota for a weekend full of workshops as well as a performance competition. Each state selected one show at its state conference to compete at the regional conference. The region will then select one show to compete at the national conference being held this summer in Rochester but win or lose, comedy or tragedy, everyone is here for the love of theater and performance arts. Well I love theater because it begins to grab you. You find your own home, your own friends, your own group of people and I've met so many people across the United States. It's pretty amazing to see these people year after year after year so that's why I like theater. I'm an adjudicator in New York State so I see a lot of theater within my own state. I travel all over New York State to watch theater at the community level. The main activities of the festival take place today and tomorrow before concluding in an awards brunch on Sunday. Reporting in Brainer Clayton Castle, Lakeland News. And there are 10 regions to the American Association of Community Theater in each region will select one show from its festival to compete at the national competition which will be held in Minnesota later this year. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.