Theater career concludes for 5 seniors today (VIDEOS)

The final show of "Lucky Stiff" was held this afternoon in front of an "okay" crowd which was probably just fine considering how nice the weather has been this weekend. (I still don't rate that as an excuse for not spending 2 hours in Olson Auditorium supporting our musical students...but that's for another day.)

My estimate is that about 120 attended today's musical, which was the official end of the theater career of 5 members of B-B-E's Class of 2026.

Here's Savannah Finken leading a high-energy dance during a scene in Act I this afternoon:


The five seniors who "held down the fort" this fall to anchor the fall musical are Coby DenHartog, Savannah Finken, ReAnn Stalboerger, Kora Martinez and Tia Nelson. They will be terribly missed on that stage. For Tia Nelson, this was her sixth musical performance. If the COVID drama would have never taken place, she would have been in 7 fall musicals at B-B-E. Incredible!

Fortunately, the well is not dry, and ample talent is coming up the ranks. The musical cast has 11 returning for next year who they can add to. They are good!

Here's two of the seventh graders in the "Monte Carlo" scene during Act I this afternoon:


More to come tomorrow. I'm taking the rest of tonight "off" and watching a Christmas movie with family. I have two difficult days ahead of me trying to assemble a large Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper that will lean very, very heavily on musical coverage. Just about all other news coverage has been set aside while throwing everything at promoting "Lucky Stiff". It was worth it! It always is.

Well, now it's Tuesday...
Last night, at Olson Auditorium, the B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team held their season awards banquet. I'll have coverage from that coming up...

To watch the Voice of Democracy first place winner, Macey Roering, give her speech, you can click here: https://shorturl.at/rVvQ9. The video was from the high school's Veterans Day program on November 8.

Musical's second night (VIDEO)

They had a larger crowd than the prior night, and ticket sales have been strong across both nights. I can't count that well, let's chalk it up to that...they had 167 for the opening night on Friday and they approached 180 last night. This puts us on track to beat last year's crowd. Hopefully today brings an even better number...maybe 200! Let's go for it! Not surprisingly, I was way too tired to work on any video last night.

Right now, it's time to get pancakes and other great food for breakfast from the Brooten American Legion. They are serving in their former Legion Hall building (now owned by Leroy Wiener)...until 1 p.m.

Here's a clip from two nights before opening night, last Wednesday, at Olson Auditorium:


This is wheels up time! The final show starts in 40 minutes. Sunday night update: I have a new blog post being added tonight that will highlight the final musical show.

Fall musical's opening night was incredible (VIDEOS*)

The musical students did an outstanding job tonight performing the opening show of "Lucky Stiff" at Olson Auditorium tonight. The two-act show lasted a total of 1 hour, 50 minutes including a 15-minute intermission.

**Hot off the computer! Here's an iMovie creation featuring images and video from the musical opener:


Here's a four-minute long video featuring the cast and crew greeting fans after the show concluded tonight:


Now begins the backbreaking work on my part of combing over all the video and photos!

I'll go back and post this video which was recorded near the end of rehearsal on Wednesday this week:


Tonight's crowd was "okay" and I am estimating we had about 120 to 130 in the seats. I'll get a firm number tomorrow from Director Steph DenHartog. Seating capacity at Olson Auditorium is around 270. What this means is that the total weekend had the ability to draw in over 800 people. Many seats went unsold tonight.

Click here to see my web article that highlights tonight's show: https://shorturl.at/BJm6v. As of late Friday night, just 49 tickets have been sold for the Saturday night show. We need to double that! And then bring in another 100 at the door to purchase tickets...there's no reason we can't get 200 or more in the auditorium on Saturday night.

The final show is at 2 p.m. on Sunday. As of Friday night, just 40 tickets have been sold for Sunday.

Here's a video clip featuring the first 50 seconds or so of the opening scene on Friday night:


Saturday morning update...
no additional tickets have been sold since last night. As of 11 a.m., 49 tickets have been sold out of a possible 270 for the Saturday night show. Disappointing! Also, for Sunday's afternoon show (2 p.m.), ticket sales stand at 40 as they were last night. This makes for just 89 tickets sold out of a possible 520 for the final two shows.

Saturday afternoon...tickets sold for tonight's show have increased to 60. That is good!

More musical coverage! The show is really, really coming along! (VIDEO)

This week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper contains ample coverage of the upcoming fall musical at B-B-E high school's Olson Auditorium. If memory serves me correct - and it does not always do that! ...this week's Voice contains Q and A profiles of 8 cast members of 'Lucky Stiff'.

To see additional musical coverage, and to read about what the musical is about, you can click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com/section/bbe. I hope to do a quick count of the current number of presale ticket sold for the three nights of the musical. (Ticket link is below)

Here's a video recorded at tonight's rehearsal:


This show is VERY good! They are REALLY coming together! You do NOT want to miss it!

***Here's the link you need for tickets!
Click here to order musical tickets! https://our.show/bbeluckystiff.

UPDATE on ticket sales: as of Wednesday night, 138 presale tickets have been sold. I find this encouraging. I badly want more sold, however, as we need to show a great response for the musical and give our Fine Arts students the support they've earned. The Olson Auditorium seating can comfortably hold over 800 across three shows. We have many, MANY seats to fill this weekend!!

Thursday night update...
The show had 143 seats sold as of this evening!! This is terrific! You can catch another update with a new rehearsal video from this evening by clicking here to redirect to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper: https://shorturl.at/LBktv. I also have a small photo album that feature photos taken at tonight's rehearsal. They are from both Act I and Act II, and a link to click on and find that photo gallery is here: https://shorturl.at/S9WmC.

B-B-E's Fall Musical is next weekend! 100 tickets sold so far! (VIDEO)

Today at Olson Auditorium, the cast and crew of the B-B-E Fall Musical "Lucky Stiff" held their 40th rehearsal of their season. Their practices plus a lunch break lasted over four hours as they continue to refine what is going to be a terrific show! You don't want to miss it! Friday, Saturday, Sunday, November 15-16-17, with shows at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and then 2 p.m. on Sunday.

I'm thrilled that, as of last night, over 100 musical tickets have been sold. They have room for over 800 across all three musical nights. To see additional musical coverage, and to read about what the musical is about, you can click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com/section/bbe.

Here's a 10-day old video from rehearsal on November 1:


In that video clip, assistant musical director Brystin LaMont, who is B-B-E's band teacher, is shown helping cast work through different moves in one of the scenes.

***Here's the link you need!
Click here to order musical tickets! https://our.show/bbeluckystiff.

Today has marked the end of an extremely rare four-day break from blogging here. Now it's "Back in the Saddle" time with a mountain of work ahead for this week!

I want to share a website for Glacial Ridge Hospice Care related to an ad that was on page 4 in last week's Voice; this promotes the Tree of Life event coming on Thursday, November 21. Their link is: https://glacialridge.org/hospice-palliative-care.

Musical posters are coming!

Yes, indeed! It is time to ramp up B-B-E fall musical promotion! In a big, BIG way! I've got a ton of work to catch up on after exhausting myself on a 14-page Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper issue. This week's paper was QUITE lacking on musical coverage. Unfortunately, it has only two musical student profiles included...and then a large splash of ink on page one.

Here's a glimpse of the new musical posters that will soon be seen everywhere across Jaguar Country!

Click here to order tickets! https://our.show/bbeluckystiff.

ALSO, you can find musical web articles at the Bonanza Valley Voice website by clicking on the following link: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com/section/bbe.

In other news...
You can click on the following link to see news articles at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website. The latest one added features a video recorded at Harold Jacobson's funeral on Saturday in Swift Falls: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com/section/news.

The musical is coming! the Musical is coming! (VIDEO)

This blog post will be expanded out tonight and tomorrow (Tuesday) to promote B-B-E's fall musical called 'Lucky Stiff' - coming to the Olson Auditorium theater stage at B-B-E high school on Friday, Saturday and Sunday - November 15, 16 and 17. You can purchase tickets and read more on the musical by clicking over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://shorturl.at/x1LQC.

The easiest response to someone asking, "What's the musical about?" is to tell them that it's a high school musical version of the hit 1989 movie "Weekend at Bernie's" that grossed a whopping $30 million that year on a $15 million production budget.

Here's a video clip featuring a glimpse of musical rehearsal back on Friday, October 25:


I strongly encourage you to come out and watch at least one of their shows! If you don't take in any of the musical nights, you are cheating yourself and the musical students! Don't be that person!!

Tuesday updates...ELECTION DAY!
My Bonanza Valley Voice SmugMug events albums are being updated this week. I'm getting mostly caught up through a couple weekends ago...you can see local events (community and school-related) photo albums by clicking here: https://bonanzavalley.smugmug.com/2024-B-B-EBonanza-Valley-area-events.

I have a whopping 12 event folders of separate, distinct events that have taken place across the past couple of weeks that I want to get included in this week's issue. That's about as high as I've ever seen it. October included a crazy number of local events. We are lucky to live in an area with such a high level of activities that we can participate in!

TUESDAY NIGHT election results...
You can follow local election results at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website...click on this short link to redirect your web browser to my election night article: https://rb.gy/99srez.

State tournaments coming up

While it is painful that we will not be part of either of them, here's a brief overview of the state quarterfinals coming this week for football and volleyball. It pains me that this will be the first fall since 2017 (not including 2020, when there was no state tournament for any sports) that B-B-E will not have a fall state tournament team. That is a stretch of 7 years!

State volleyball...
In the Class 1A state volleyball pairings, West Central Area (27-4) earned the No. 4 seed and will open at 5 p.m. on Thursday, November 7 in the quarterfinals. Last night in the Section 6A championship, WCA swept Hillcrest Lutheran Academy to earn back-to-back state trips. The MSHSL website has not posted set scores from the match yet. At state in the opener, WCA will face No. 5-seeded Kittson County Central, who won the Section 8A championship in a four-set win over Ada-Borup West.

Incredibly, New Life Academy of Section 4A earned the No. 3 seed at state. They were ranked No. 19 in the QRF rankings and have an 18-12 record. In the Skyline Conference, NLA tied for fourth place with Maranatha Christian. From my view, WCA was robbed in the state seedings and should have been seeded No. 3.

New London-Spicer is back at the state volleyball tournament for the first time since 2009, when Mimi Knutson coached the Wildcats into the state tournament with a 29-1 record. At state this year, the Wildcats are the No. 8 seed and open up with No. 1-seeded Albany in the quarterfinals at 1 p.m. on Thursday, November 7.

State volleyball seedings:
1. Mayer Lutheran
2. Minneota
3. New Life Academy
4. West Central Area
5. Kittson County Central
6. Fillmore Central
7. Ely
8. Sebeka

State football...
In the Class 1A state football pairings, Upsala/Swanville Area earned the No. 1 seed in the North half of the state field. The state tournament was split into "south" and "north" divisions for the first time ever. (A good move.) For U/SA, they open with No. 4-seeded (North) Parkers Prairie on Thursday, November 7 with a 6 p.m. kickoff at Rock Ridge high school's football stadium, which is located between Eveleth and Virginia. The Rock Ridge high school opened up in 2021, and their football stadium is impressive. My stepson Jack (Class of 2025) played two years of varsity football there with the Class 4A Rock Ridge Warriors.

In Class 2A, Kimball Area will play in the state tournament as the No. 1 North seed. They open state on Friday, November 8 with kickoff at Brainerd high school at 7 p.m. against No. 4-seeded Moose Lake/Willow River. This is Kimball's first football state tournament of this century, and I am unaware of when they may have played at state in the 20th century.

Section volleyball championship match scores on November 2:
Section 5AA championship: Annandale 3, Maple Lake 1 (a tough loss marking the end of the season for 6 seniors on Coach Kiebel's Irish squad)
Section 7A championship: Ely 3, Bigfork 0
Section 1A championship: Fillmore Central 3, Mabel-Canton 1
Section 1AAA championship: Stewartville 3, Byron 2 (after missing state since 2019, Stewartville is back at state for the first time in Class 3A; they were the 2019 Class 2A state champions)
Section 3AA championship: New London-Spicer 3, Redwood Valley 0 (NL-S Wildcats are back at state for the first time since 2009; this was NL-S's first section championship berth since 2014)
Section 6A championship: West Central Area 3, Hillcrest Lutheran Academy 0
Section 3A championship: Minneota 3, Westbrook-Walnut Grove 1

Section volleyball championship match scores on November 1:
Section 4A championship: New Life Academy 3, West Lutheran 1
Section 8A championship: Kittson County Central 3, Ada-Borup West 1

Section semifinal (sub-section finals) match scores on October 31:
Westbrook-Walnut Grove 3, Russel-Tyler-Ruthton 1
Mayer Lutheran 3, Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart 0
Annandale 3, Watertown-Mayer 2
Mabel-Canton 3, Kenyon-Wanamingo 2
Sebeka 3, Pine River-Backus 1
New London-Spicer 3, Paynesville Area 1
Alexandria 3, Rocori 1
Minneota 3, Canby 1
Albany 3, Sauk Centre 2
Maple Lake 3, Providence Academy 1