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Meet the Cast – Dave Schroeder

As ARTC counts down to our live performances at DragonCon 2015, we are encouraged to tell you more about the talented people who help bring our stories to life!

This week, ARTC highlights:

Dave Schroeder

dave shr.

Dave is a long time ARTC artist & board member.

Now : Dave Schroeder is a retired Chief Information Officer and aspiring novelist from Grayson, Georgia, who loves being part of ARTC as a voice actor, playwright and board member. In May, after retiring from the business world, he published Xenotech Rising, a science fiction humor novel about supporting alien technology after Earth’s been invited to join the Galactic Free Trade Association. It’s getting five star reviews on Amazon and Dave is now busy writing the second book in the series, Xenotech Queen’s Gambit.

Currently, Dave lives in suburban Atlanta with his highly supportive wife, talented daughter—also an ARTC member, and three cats, though only one of the family felines pays him any attention when it’s not feeding time.

Then: After working as an I.T. executive in the early days of the web and experiencing the absurdity of the dotcom boom first hand, Dave wrote the books, lyrics and music for Softwear.com, a light-hearted musical about two clueless guys trying to create a fashion web site. Putting Softwear.com on stage off-off-Broadway in New York in 2004 was one of Dave’s most memorable experiences. His favorite thing is the world is to hear people laugh when they read, watch or hear things he’s written.

Find out more about Dave Schroeder here.

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DragonCon Performance Cast Announced!

With DragonCon just a little over a month away,  ARTC has begun the process of rehearsing for our live performances. Below is a list of the talented cast which will be bringing these adventures to life! 

Make sure to share the good news with your friends! @artc  #artcradio  /artcradio

Rory Rammer/Queen of the Spaceways (Friday, 4 Sept.)​

Rory Queen crop     Written by Ron R. Butler     

      Announcer – Joe Ravenson
     Rory Rammer – David Benedict
     Skip Sagan – Adam Ross
     Michiko Sakai – Laura Corliss
     Aphrodite DeHavilland – Clair Kiernan
     Dale Alexander – Daniel Kiernan

 

 

Blues for Johnny Raven (Friday, 4 Sept.)​

Blues-For-Johnny-Raven-preview

   Written by Thomas E. Fuller

     Johnny Raven – Daniel Kiernan/Adam Ross
     Gloria Kinsolving – Fiona Leonard​/Laura Corliss​
     Benny the Gospel – Brad Strickland
     Prowse – Joe Ravenson
     Lorenzo Gold – Daniel Taylor

 

 

Passion of Frankenstein (Sunday, 6 Sept.)​

PassionOfFrankenstein-digital

     Victor Frankenstein – Matt Goodson/Daniel Taylor
     Monster – David Benedict/Daniel Taylor
     Elizabeth – Paige Steadman/Elisabeth Allen
     Constanza – Kelley Ceccato/Clair Kiernan
     Henry – Ron Butler/Dave Schroeder
     Meyer – Daniel Taylor/Adam Ross
     Eric – Dave Schroeder/Ron Zukowski

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The Passion of Frankenstein part 3 of 5

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Continuing our presentation of Thomas E. Fuller’s powerhouse, The Passion of Frankenstein, this month we bring you a performance from LibertyCon 2015.

As we’ve mentioned several times, the script is like an irresistable force, bearing down on the audience and hitting them with a heady blend of emotion, horror, and intense sound effects. The piece is vocally challenging for our actors. When we decided to bring the performance to World Horror Convention, we knew we couldn’t just perform it once but we also knew that the actors’ voices might never be the same if they had to perform it as many times in a row as we were planning.

So for LibertyCon 2015 we switched up the cast. We hope you enjoy this segment that features several performers brand new to ARTC!

The cast and crew of
The cast and crew of “The Passion of Frankenstein” for LibertyCon 2015
And this is what happens when the director loses control of the performers.
And this is what happens when the director loses control of the performers.

Raven-CDface02

 

 

We’re also bringing you the preview of our upcoming new release, Blues for Johnny Raven! Be sure to check out the IndieGogo campaign to see how you can help us make the CD available to YOU!

 

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31 Years of ARTC: The Last Dragon to Avondale 2010

Continuing our look back at ARTC’s 31 years (thusfar!) with photos from our live performances. You can get a look at our whole history of combining adventures in sound with the thrill of live performance in our Chronology!

In this installment we bring you our appearance at the Academy Theatre in October 2010 where we performed The Last Dragon to Avondale along with The House Across the Way, featuring music by Brad Weage and Paul Mercer, and Rory Rammer, Space Marshal: The Colour of the Shadow of the Outsider Over the Mountains of Madness Out of Space. This performance was a benefit for Georgia Aquarium (it was one of our first benefit performances, in fact!) and also included special musical guest Rooke! Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

In 2010 we debuted our Partners in Imagination program, which strives to harness the power of multiple non-profit groups into something stronger by raising awareness amongst our various audiences and maybe even a little money as well.

Megan Tindale and Brian Troxell
Psst…there’s not a lot of money in this…at least not yet.

We had originally wanted to do this benefit for Georgia Aquarium with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but it became apparent very quickly that the script wouldn’t be ready in time, so we switched gears to The Last Dragon to Avondale. We felt that its focus on an “endangered species” made it a great fit.

Andrew Chiang and Sonya Arundar
“You keep telling yourself that, ok?”

Plus, we’d been performing at the Academy Theatre in Avondale Estates for a while at this point and to NOT perform this piece there would have been a crime against … well, a crime against something. Dragons, maybe.

The audience for
We got a good turnout, too!

We also had the privilege of working with some amazing musicians on this piece. There was Brad Weage.

Brad Weage
The very serious Brad Weage

Paul Mercer on violin. This was Paul’s first appearance with us!

Paul Mercer
The equally serious Paul Mercer

And our special musical guest, Rooke! Rooke has been around since the late 1980s and play a kind of (in their words) acid folk. We couldn’t quite get the whole band for this show, but we were thrilled to get Steven Sams, David Cater, and Keena Graham!

Steven Sams, Keena Graham, and David Cater
The not-quite-so-serious Rooke!

Rooke actually released an album of the recordings from this performance, so go get some great music!

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31 Years of ARTC: The Island of Dr. Moreau 2010

Continuing our look back at ARTC’s 31 years (thusfar!) with photos from our live performances. You can get a look at our whole history of combining adventures in sound with the thrill of live performance in our Chronology!

In this installment we bring you our appearance at the Academy Theatre in October 2010 where we performed The Island of Dr. Moreau, featuring music by The Ghosts Project, along with Inhuman Rights, Rory Rammer, Space Marshal: Set Loose the Dogs of Time, and Bumpers Crossroads: The Stray Dog. This performance was a benefit for the Atlanta Humane Society and also included special musical guest Julie Gribble! Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

Ok, first up, we know that using The Island of Dr. Moreau as a benefit for the Atlanta Humane Society sounds like a sick joke.

Fiona K. Leonard and Daniel Taylor.
Really sick.

But the truth was that we thought it was a perfect choice to highlight the plight of animals. While it’s true that nobody is trying to turn animals into humans surgically…

Hal Wiedeman, Rachel Wansker, Clair W. Kiernan, Daniel W. Kiernan
THAT WE KNOW OF…

…animals still face serious challenges every day due to neglect, maltreatment, habitat loss, and various other challenges. We wanted to help, and we felt that one of H. G. Wells’s more shocking stories might assist with that.

Ron N. Butler, Brian Troxell, Hal Wiedeman, J. E. Hurlburt
And goodness knows we can use all the help we can get.

This was also a musically packed performance. In addition to the usual brilliance of Alton Leonard, we were thrilled to be graced with The Ghosts Project!

Daniel Taylor, Clair W. Kiernan, Paul Mercer, Davis Petterson
There they are, lurking in the background. Try not to frighten them.

Not to mention our very special musical guest, Julie Gribble!

Julie Gribble
With suitably dramatic lighting

This performance also featured our Beast Men Chorus, led by Beastmistress Trudy Leonard.

The Beast Chorus
Try not to let THEM frighten YOU. (click this image for a larger version)

Not to mention one of the more violent Foley performances in ARTC’s history, involving a rubber mallet and a rather unfortunate butternut squash, used to simulate the cracking of the pantherwoman’s skull.

Butternut squash
Before (front)
butternut squash
Before (back) (it saw what happened to its predecessors…)
Sonya, Mary Ward, David Benedict
The dastardly deed
butternut squash...squashed
The evidence of the crime

Be sure to come see more crimes against produce as we mangle a grapefruit in our upcoming performances of The Passion of Frankenstein!

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The Passion of Frankenstein part 2 of 5

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As we mentioned last month, we’re bringing you The Passion of Frankenstein in five parts and will be showcasing a different performance for at least the first four. We hope. We haven’t performed two of these yet and if the recording devices fail (it’s happened) then we might have to improvise. Part five will probably include the best performance of those scenes, but who knows? We might surprise ourselves.

Paige Steadman Ross and Kelley S. Ceccato
Surprise!

This month we’re bringing you a section of the studio recording that we did at Audio Craft Studio back in 2002. This is what we refer to as the “original cast”. The pictures in this entry are still from World Horror Convention 2015, though, because we don’t have any pictures from any of the other performances yet. Talk to us after LibertyCon and Dragon Con. So the picture below of Thomas E. Fuller and Henry Howard at Audio Craft will have to do.

Thomas Fuller and Henry Howard admire an issue of the Centauri Express audio magazine at Audio Craft Studio
Thomas Fuller and Henry Howard admire an issue of the Centauri Express audio magazine at Audio Craft Studio

The studio recording was, literally, a monster to produce. The rich soundscape we talked about in last month’s entry is difficult to produce live, but surely in the studio it’s easier, right? Wrong.

Christina Fuller and Matt Gwaltney
What do you mean it’s not easier??

First, in the studio the standards are higher. Live audiences are very forgiving (thank goodness!), but once it’s on a recording all the little flaws stick out, so there’s a lot of precision work that has to get done. And the music, which in a live performance has a little bit of ebb and flow and adjustment to it, had to get timed out to the second to make the scenes work the way they were supposed to.

And then there was the review process.

Anthony Fuller and Bob Brown
“Our opinion of that draft of the recording might be at the bottom of this bucket. Or maybe it’s under it.”

See, this was back in the early 2000s when the Internet was only barely a thing for the general public. Cloud storage didn’t exist. Websites were hosted on Angelfire and Geocities. And CD-R technology wasn’t even remotely as reliable as it is now. We couldn’t just create an mp3, put it on a server somewhere, and have beta listeners download it and give feedback. We had to try to gather everyone together at the same time and have a listening party. On one memorable occasion we had all the relevant parties in the room…and the CD wouldn’t play. And burning another one would have involved an hour of driving and probably 30 minutes to actually burn the disk. So we all went home.

Ah, those were the good old days…

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31 Years of ARTC: Dragon Con 2010 part 2

Continuing our look back at ARTC’s 31 years (thusfar!) with photos from our live performances. You can get a look at our whole history of combining adventures in sound with the thrill of live performance in our Chronology!

In this installment we bring you our appearance at Dragon Con 2010 (Sunday night edition) where we presented Time and Time Again by H. Beam Piper, adapted by Ron N. Butler and At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft, adapted by Thomas E. Fuller, and featuring music by The Ghosts Project. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

It’s a short update this week, folks, as I am flying out to Kansas City, MO, later today to attend the HEAR Now Festival. But this was a momentous show because it marked the beginning of our long-standing relationship with The Ghosts Project, who have since gone on to play with us on several other productions, including The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Rats in the Walls!

Fiona K. Leonard
It’s completely mind-blowing
Paul Mercer and Davis Petterson
The Ghosts Project, Paul Mercer and Davis Petterson
Brian Troxell
“Don’t forget, you can own this recording of this historic performance.”
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31 Years of ARTC: Dragon Con 2010 part 1

Continuing our look back at ARTC’s 31 years (thusfar!) with photos from our live performances. You can get a look at our whole history of combining adventures in sound with the thrill of live performance in our Chronology!

In this installment we bring you our appearance at Dragon Con 2010 (Friday night edition) where we presented The Proper Thing To Do by William Alan Ritch and The House Across the Way by Kelley S. Ceccato. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

Dragon Con. Its name is legendary in the southeast region, and ARTC has been at every single one. It’s a ton of work, but also a ton of fun. We get our biggest audiences at this convention…which isn’t surprising, since it’s the biggest convention we do. We often roll out brand new plays at Dragon Con.

Andrew Chiang
Sometimes we fly them in, too.

We also love to challenge ourselves. As if performing in a hotel ballroom with high ceilings and minimal setup time isn’t challenging enough, we really like to bring our A-game to these fans, and sometimes that means bringing in guest musicians.

Alton Leonard on keyboards and Paul Mercer on violin.
We bring in the regular musicians, too, because they’re awesome.

In 2010 we brought Kelley S. Ceccato’s The House Across the Way, which has a violin as an integral part of the plot. So we called up Paul Mercer and asked if he was available.

Paul Mercer
Spoiler Alert: He was.

Here’s a few more pictures to round it out, but be sure to see the whole album on Flickr!

Lili Bilbao and Mary Ward
The Foley team! Or Team Foley. Or whatever they want to call themselves.
Megan Tindale
Don’t let the glowing red eyes fool you. She’s very nice.
Mary Ward
She’s with ARTC…but what does she do with ARTC?
Mary Ward
Well. I guess that answers that question.
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31 Years of ARTC: LibertyCon 2010

Continuing our look back at ARTC’s 31 years (thusfar!) with photos from our live performances. You can get a look at our whole history of combining adventures in sound with the thrill of live performance in our Chronology!

In this installment we bring you our appearance at LibertyCon where we presented Time and Time Again by H. Beam Piper, adapted by Ron N. Butler, The Competitor (first live performance!) by Brad Linaweaver and William Alan Ritch, and Bryce and Bigmouth: A Boy and His Griffin by Henry Lee Forrest. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

LibertyCon 2015 is almost full! If you’re coming up to Chattanooga and haven’t gotten your membership yet, we recommend that you move with alacrity!

The cast and Foley team for LibertyCon 2010!
The cast and Foley team for LibertyCon 2010!
Brian Troxell and Bryce Lucyshyn
Brian Troxell and Bryce Lucyshyn cope with the sudden appearance of a griffin (not pictured)!
Bryce Lucyshyn and Clair W. Kiernan
Clair W. Kiernan imitates the griffin (still not pictured).
William Alan Ritch
William Alan Ritch presents the cast to the audience. As if this group of hams couldn’t have taken care of presenting themselves.
Ron N. Butler, Alton Leonard, and Clair W. Kiernan
Ron N. Butler, Alton Leonard, and Clair W. Kiernan in “Time and Time Again”.
Lili Bilbao and Mary C. Ward at the Foley table.
The Foley team. Makin’ noise. Like you do.
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31 Years of ARTC: Chattacon 2010

Continuing our look back at ARTC’s 31 years (thusfar!) with photos from our live performances. You can get a look at our whole history of combining adventures in sound with the thrill of live performance in our Chronology!

In this installment we bring you our appearance at Chattacon where we presented A Ship Named Francis, Rory Rammer, Space Marshal: The Angel of Destruction, NOSINET, and SWATting the Books. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

Ariel Kasten, David Benedict, Bill Kronick
The cast bows their heads as the Chaplain from “A Ship Named Francis” calls upon the great Tester to keep the ship’s engines from exploding.
Bill Ritch, Bob Zimmerman, Brad Weage
The tech crew keeps the ship afloat.
The cast from Chattacon 2010.
The cast from Chattacon 2010!

Short update this week, but there’s plenty to see on the Flickr page!