 Central Lakes College has announced a capital campaign project to order and to renovate one of their new, one of their theaters. Clayton Castle takes us into the plans of the Dryden Theater. In this, the season of giving, the Central Lakes College Theater Department is looking towards the future and beginning a capital campaign to renovate the Dryden Theater. The small black box theater named after former CLC theater professor Bob Dryden. He was the founder of the theater program here at Central Lakes College back when it was Brainerd Community College in the mid to late 60s. When he started teaching theater here at this college there were no theater spaces at all and in his tenure here we have both the Chalberg Theater and now the Dryden Theater. Since it's beginning in 1992 the Dryden Theater has seen a wide variety of events and performances. This space was the site for the first gubernatorial debate when Jesse Ventura won the governorship. It was broadcast all over the state. It's seen blood drives, it's seen any number of things, but primarily we use it as a theater space. The theater department uses it to put on shows of different magnitudes with everything between a major musical and a one-person show. After being a work in progress for the past 25 years Spradlin believes it's time to make the theater shine like the jewel that it is. And over the years we've kind of cobbled it together but it's starting to show its age. So we plan to purchase new risers, new seating which will be much more comfortable than the seating we have now, new curtains, and to outfit the space so that it is more of a theater space rather than just a multi-purpose space. And despite the campaign just beginning the future possibilities for the space are endless and Spradlin already has a few ideas. My plans for this after the renovation project is to start a sub-series of the cultural art series, a kind of unplugged coffee house music series in this space. The total cost of the project is about $130,000 reporting in Brainer Clayton Castle Lakeland News. You can make a tax-deductible contribution to the project through the end of March in 2018. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.