30th Anniversary – Page 4 – Atlanta Radio Theatre Company

Posted on August 14, 2014November 5, 2019 by David Benedict

30 Years of ARTC: Halloween 2004

This being our 30th anniversary, we thought we’d dip back into the past and recap some of our previous performances, triumphs and tragedies, in a series of posts. And don’t forget our Chronology! It’s not as detailed, but it really shows the growth of ARTC over the years.

This week we bring you our appearances at Onstage Atlanta and Stone Mountain Park for Halloween 2004. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

A plastic pumpkin graces the ARTC stage at Stone Mountain Park — ARTC’s Halloween stage decorations

We love Halloween. Love it. It’s seriously our favorite time of year. The cool fall weather, the colorful leaves on the skeletal trees…and the eerie atmosphere it brings with it. October seems to be a natural month for audio drama, and with our emphasis on horror and science fiction we are right at home.

Brad Weage, David Carter, Cyd Hoskinson, and Tracy Wilson make up the tech crew for this show.

As is often the case in the arts, the performers tend to garner most of the accolades. They’re the ones up front, visible, and vocal. But in our case the tech and Foley crew are the real stars. It’s been said that if the show is going well, you don’t even notice the tech crew is there, and that’s pretty much the case. We’ve been very lucky to have a lot of great people on tech over the years and we’re always looking for more!

Megan Tindale holds up the 'Yay!' sign for Rory Rammer, Space Marshal. — Megan Tindale is thrilled that we remembered this sign for this show.

The fact is that most people don’t always know about all the opportunities available in ARTC. Sure we love voice actors and we always need more techs, Foley artists, and musicians. We can even teach you how to do some of those things if you’re interested in learning and have a little patience. But did you know we also have all the same needs and roles of any non-profit? Marketing, fundraising, public relations, graphic design…you name it, we’ve got an opportunity for you.

Jack Mayfield and Clair W. Kiernan perform as Daniel Taylor provides Foley sound effects.

But back to the show. This year we took the unusual step of having Halloween shows in two venues. Onstage Atlanta graciously hosted us, as well as Memorial Hall in Stone Mountain Park. It involved a lot of shuffling of equipment back and forth, but our audiences had a great time.

Jack Mayfield, Megan Tindale, Geoffrey Brown, and David Benedict address the microphones

We also changed up the show we were doing, depending on where we were at the time. A bit more adult fare at Onstage Atlanta, a bit more family-friendly at Stone Mountain Park. That’s the flexibility of ARTC. You can check out the playbill for these shows here!

Posted on August 7, 2014November 5, 2019 by David Benedict

30 Years of ARTC: Pirate Day 2004

This week we bring you our appearance at Barnes and Noble Perimeter for Talk Like a Pirate Day in 2004. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

ARTC has been extremely privileged over the years to be able to work with Brad Strickland. Author of several published novels and some of our best audio dramas, Brad has brought us to new levels of excellence through his guidance and participation not only as an author, but as a skilled actor and presenter.

At this event, Barnes and Noble Perimeter asked us to come do a show for them for Pirate Day, based on the success of our Harry Potter events, and we couldn’t think of better subject matter than Brad’s Pirate Hunter series, which he co-authored with Thomas E. Fuller.

Jack Mayfield, Daniel Kiernan, and Brad Strickland in full pirate regalia. — Jack Mayfield, Daniel Kiernan, and Brad Strickland on the high seas.

Talk Like a Pirate Day is always a ton of fun in and of itself, but being able to present this work (in costume, no less), was a real treat for us.

Jack Mayfield, Megan Tindale, and Jonathan Strickland. None of which are showing any signs of scurvy.

You know, we keep saying we don’t do many shows in costume, but examples to the contrary keep cropping up!

Terry Sanders and Jack Mayfield. — Terry Sanders and Jack Mayfield on the bounding main.

We hope you’re enjoying these forays into our past. If you are, let us know! We’ve got lots left, including some of our best work coming up soon!

Posted on July 31, 2014November 5, 2019 by David Benedict

30 Years of ARTC: Frontier Days and Tomato Festival

This week we’re bringing you two events at once! The Tomato Festival and Frontier Days, both at Stone Mountain Park.

ARTC in a rare outdoor performance. — Outdoor venues. Not for the faint of heart.

The first thing you’ll notice about this performance at the Tomato Festival is that it’s outdoors. We’re not terribly fond of outdoor venues for a variety of reasons, but this show was a ton of fun.

Megan Tindale performs at the Tomato Festival — Megan Tindale

One reason why we don’t care for the outdoors much is that the weather is going to either be good or bad. If it’s good, then people aren’t likely to stick around to hear a radio performance no matter how good it sounds. If it’s bad then everybody probably stayed home or ran indoors. Also, it can get hot out there!

Another reason is acoustics and unwanted sounds. At an indoor venue such as the Academy Theatre or even Dragon Con, we have a certain amount of control over how things sound. Outdoors, anything can happen. And we have to crank the volume up a little louder than normal because there are no walls for the sound to bounce off of!

Umbrellas go up as it begins to rain at Frontier Days

But the number one reason we don’t like outdoor venues is because of our experience at Frontier Days and our cautionary tale of how great ideas can go wrong. Frontier Days was a celebration of the time between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War here in Georgia. We’d actually had to write a bunch of new scripts just to make sure we had some content for this show, and we were eager to debut them. And then it rained.

When the rain let up, the festival continued. They had strolling characters and reenacters and all kinds of fun stuff, including one gentleman who was demonstrating an actual black powder musket. We thought this was brilliant and, since one of our brand new scripts, The Legend of Nancy Morgan Hart, called for a gunshot, we thought this was an excellent opportunity to incorporate some live Foley into the show. We rehearsed it and everything went off without a hitch.

Then we performed it. At the critical moment, when our heroine is supposed to shoot one of the soldiers who has invaded her house, the musket misfired. All we got was a click. And the very next line was supposed to be “She shot him!” There was a pause on stage. The actors all looked at one another, and then at the Foley table who shrugged their shoulders helplessly. And then Geoffry Brown uttered the line that will live forever in ARTC history: “She poisoned me!” and David Benedict could only reply: “She poisoned him! Right there!”.

And the worst part is that, due to a technical glitch, we don’t even have a recording!!

Elayna Little Cook and Oreta Sarah Taylor on top of Stone Mountain

But there are worse ways to spend your day than at Stone Mountain Park, even on an overcast and slightly rainy day. And we don’t remember if the walkie-talkies reached all the way back to the performance site.

Oreta Sarah Taylor, Megan Tindale, and David Benedict look out over the grand vistas surrounding Stone Mountain.

We really did have a fun time doing these shows. 🙂

Posted on July 24, 2014November 5, 2019 by David Benedict

30 Years of ARTC: Sci Fi Summer 2004

The convention scene has always been kind to ARTC. We get our biggest audiences, attract our most fervent fans, and have our biggest sales. We also have our best guest stars, and in 2004 we had the honor of performing alongside Lisa Getto at Sci Fi Summer.

Bill Ritch and Lisa Getto do a quick sound check.

Lisa was a great guest star. We actually don’t really know what she’s been up to lately, but if anybody has any info we’d love to catch up with her. She brought a talent to the show that really enhanced everyone’s performances and was a pleasure to work with!

Clair W. Kiernan preparing to sing bad karaoke in *Rory Rammer, Space Marshal: Luna Shall Be Dry!*

For our show selections, we went back to an old concept of Thomas E. Fuller’s, which was the idea of having a fictional radio network that broadcast old-time radio shows that were all in a similar vein. Occasionally one show would have a vague reference to another just to imply they were all in the same universe, but they didn’t really overlap. The concept was called the WOLF Broadcasting Network and we hope to get a bunch of these series into the studio very soon!

Phil Carter, Clair W. Kiernan, Megan Tindale, and Sketch MacQuinor in an episode of *Terra Tarkington: Interstellar Nurse’s Corps*.

Among these shows were Terra Tarkington: Interstellar Nurses Corps by Wendy Webb, adapted from a story by Sharon Webb. This series tells the story of the intrepid Terra Tarkington and her adventures in the outer orbits with her beloved Dr. Brian-Scott.

We also included an episode of The Crimson Hawk. One of the great things about these kinds of shows is that they tend to be heavy on Foley. Some of our more elaborate productions make extensive use of recorded sound effects in order to keep the atmosphere more real, but in these shows we’re hearkening back to the days of old-time radio and so a little extra Foley is completely appropriate.

Cast members hold a makeshift sign that reads — The infamous “Yay!” of Rory Rammer.

Two episodes of Rory Rammer, Space Marshal were included. You can always tell when we’re doing Rory because of the infamous “Yay!” You can also tell when we forgot the sign and had to make a new one on the spot. Hey, give us a break. If you could see how much stuff we have to bring to a show, you’d be surprised we don’t forget more stuff.

Join us again next week for more 30th anniversary fun!

Posted on July 17, 2014November 5, 2019 by David Benedict

30 Years of ARTC: Costume Con 2004

Y’know, a few posts ago we said that we didn’t do shows in costume very much. But the 2003-2004 time period was an exception to this rule, as Costume Con 22 was hosted in Atlanta. And when you perform at Costume Con…you gotta be in costume!

This year we performed Fiona K. Leonard’s play, Kissed by a Stranger.

Phil Carter, Megan Tindale, and Geoffrey Brown in Kissed by a Stranger — Phil Carter, Megan Tindale, and Geoffrey Brown in *Kissed by a Stranger*

When you’re in a radio group, you don’t always think about costumes. But sometimes you do. We’ve got a wide range of talents in ARTC and costuming is a passion for several of our members. Others, not so much. So what you get is a fairly diverse selection in terms of quality of workmanship. The above picture represents three of the really good ones.

This performance also represented one of our best audiences. They really got into the performance, even going so far as to hiss at the villain.

Sonya with Sarah Taylor at the Foley table.

In some of our horror and science fiction pieces, we rely fairly extensively on recorded sound effects to achieve a certain atmosphere. People often ask us how we decide, and it’s a bit of a process, actually. First we decide what kind of piece are we doing and how much realism we need the audience to experience. Comedies use more Foley, serious horror uses more recorded SFX. But we also look at how much is going on at the Foley table at any given time. Already doing footsteps, dropping some tin cans, and opening the door? That thunder is more likely to be recorded. If nothing else is going on and the piece calls for it, we might use the thunderball (a punch balloon filled with BBs).

In Kissed by a Stranger Foley played a big role.

Joel Abbott and Bill Ritch at the tech table.

If you were at this show, you may remember a recorded sound effect that went off at the wrong time. Let’s just say a clock chiming creates a much different effect than a gunshot! But the correct effect was triggered and all was well.

Alton Leonard, Clair W. Kiernan, and Megan Tindale address the microphones.

This convention was a ton of fun. If they ever come back to Atlanta, we’d be glad to perform for them again!

Fiona K. Leonard and Jack Mayfield demonstrate the gravity of the situation.

Be sure to see the rest of the pics on Flickr!

Posted on July 10, 2014November 5, 2019 by David Benedict

30 Years of ARTC: Dragon Con 2003

We don’t often get a chance to show off our rehearsal process. Unless of course you’re interested in joining us, in which case feel free to come on by.

Here you see the state-of-the-art Ritch/Wilbanks Arts Center, where we do the majority of our rehearsals. In 2003 we performed The Island of Dr. Moreau and Can You Hear Me? at Dragon Con, so we had to kind of pack in the actors. Moreau in particular requires a big cast because of the chorus of beast men.

Matt Ceccato and Trudy Leonard lead the beast men chorus.

The chorus requires a rhythm and a leader, which in this production were provided by Matt Ceccato and Trudy Leonard. Wrangling beast men is hard work!

It’s serious work getting ready for a major convention. But it’s also a ton of fun. We couldn’t have done it for the past 30 years if it weren’t!

And before you know it, the day is upon you and you’re getting ready for the show! Our setup looks a lot different now, but there’s still just as many wires. If anybody knows how to make copper less heavy, please let us know!

The unsung heroes of the convention, the ARTC sales team. Please note the number of cassettes on that table. Oh, how far we’ve come! And at this year’s convention, not only will we have some new CDs, but we’ll also have some digital-only releases that you can buy on a flash drive!

We also welcomed special guest James Leary to the show! At the time, he was best known as Clem on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Doug Kaye accepts the ARTC Lifetime Achievement Award.

And we awarded the Thomas E. Fuller Lifetime Achievement Award to Doug Kaye!

It was a great year! Be sure to check out the rest of the photos on Flickr!

Posted on July 3, 2014November 5, 2019 by David Benedict

30 Years of ARTC – Harry Potter at Barnes and Noble 2003

As anybody who has seen us perform live knows, we don’t often go in for costumes. We also pride ourselves on performing original material. But who could resist the opportunity to come celebrate the release of the newest Harry Potter book?? In 2003 Barnes and Noble Perimeter invited us to come bring Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to the citizens of Atlanta. We were competing against parties citywide, but we like to think we represented ourselves quite well against the other (somewhat mundane) readings and magicians that were peppering the landscape at that time.

This was actually a lot more work than you might imagine. First, we had to find a way to make it more like our style of audio drama, but we couldn’t do a straight up adaptation. It’s not our work, so we didn’t feel free to dramatize it the way we would normally. What we eventually settled on was a melding of an audiobook and an audio drama, where a narrator would carry most of the reading and characters would come in as appropriate to speak their dialogue. We did take the step of eliminating many of the “he said/she said” narrations to make it flow a little better.

Another big challenge was picking which chapters we wanted to read. Obviously we couldn’t read all of the previous four books, so we picked and chose based on our favorites and also on some scenes that the movies had left out.

Of course we also had live Foley sound effects. It was really gratifying to see the Foley artists get so much attention at this event. Of course we also had a few unwanted sound effects from the coffee bar behind us.

It was definitely an unusual venue, but also festive! We ran contests, did giveaways, and there was trivia. Everybody had an amazingly good time. We could see some adults in the crowd who had some familiarity with our craft having a grand time, plus the kids who had never seen anything like this before were enraptured. Of course some of it was the content, but many of them were enjoying experiencing it in a whole new way.

Jack Mayfield's Harry looks nervous. — Jack Mayfield’s Harry looks nervous.

And at midnight we unveiled the greatest surprise of all. When the boxes were cracked open, we pulled out our own copies and began reading from the first chapter of the new book as the audience broke ranks and made for the checkout counters. I think a lot of them appreciated being able to get a head start on their reading by having us perform it for them while they were waiting in line. Especially since Order of the Phoenix got off to such a dramatic start with a chapter entitled “Dudley Demented”.

Posted on June 26, 2014November 5, 2019 by David Benedict

30 Years of ARTC – An Atlanta Christmas 2003

Welcome to the first installment of photos from our performances of An Atlanta Christmas. 2014’s performance will mark the 15th consecutive year of this heartwarming show about Christmas in the south. Originally conceived by Thomas E. Fuller as a series of vignettes that focused specifically on Atlanta and the history of the holidays, the ARTC writers have expanded it to include many of our serials, including Rory Rammer, Space Marshal, Unresolved Mysteries: Solved While U Wait, and Bumpers Crossroads. We’ve got Thomas’s original vision on CD for you (or through our digital distributors) and the expanded edition will be coming out of ARTC Studio in due time.

More photos of these performances will be coming in this series as we go along. You can watch the kids grow up, just as we did!

The ARTC chorus warms up before the show.

Brad Weage plays a medly of holiday favorites.

Music is a huge part of the Christmas holiday tradition, and we work hard to integrate it into our performance each year. Alton Leonard composed the theme song for the set, Old Atlanta Christmas, and provides carols whenever he can. Brad Weage also brought the classics along with him every year. Combine that with our talented vocalists and it creates that warm holiday atmosphere that’s a trademark of this performance.

Our younger performers take the microphones.

The original version of An Atlanta Christmas was framed by a family gathered around in the living room reminiscing about holidays long past. Finding talented children to play those roles, as well as the roles of the children in the individual stories, isn’t necessarily difficult. The hard part is keeping them from growing up and out of the roles! Each year the producers have to look at the kids from the previous years and determine if it’s time to replace them with the next crop of budding audio dramatists!

Everyone dresses in their holiday finery each year.

Dressing up for the holidays is always a festive part of the performance. We’ve tried several different things to make the visual part of our medium more interesting for our live performances, but for Christmas it’s never really that difficult. Everyone breaks out the reds and greens and we throw a great big holiday audio party on the stage!

The Foley team enters into the holiday spirit!

Plush animals, Santa Claus hats, coonskin caps, and jingle bells traditionally adorn the Foley table. Our usual fare of horror and science fiction often has a mix of recorded and practical Foley sound effects. After all, how do you cast a space ship from the skies of Earth to the orbit of the moon with a table full of sound effects? Sure we could do it, but it adds to the immersive depth of our performance to mix in a recorded effect from time to time. But at Christmas there aren’t as many Martians, there are fewer Elder Gods, and that thing clattering on the roof isn’t a faceless monster, and so we’re able to put the focus on what traditionally sets audio drama apart from other art forms.

Clair Kiernan presents the traditional Christmas poinsettia.

And what holiday would be complete without the poinsettia. Not sure why the poinsettia is significant? Come see this year’s performance of An Atlanta Christmas and we’ll be glad to tell you all about it. More details coming soon!

In the meantime, be sure to check out the rest of the photos from our Stone Mountain appearance of An Atlanta Christmas on Flickr. We’ll have another set of holiday photos in a few weeks!

Posted on June 19, 2014November 5, 2019 by David Benedict

30 Years of ARTC – The Dancer in the Dark, Dragon Con 2002

In 2002 we presented Thomas E. Fuller’s The Dancer in the Dark. We had no way of knowing it, but this would be Thomas’s final performance with ARTC before his untimely passing in November. We led off the show with the presentation of the ARTC Lifetime Achievement Award, with Thomas bestowing it upon Joyce Leigh.

Thomas E. Fuller presents Joyce Leigh with the ARTC Lifetime Achievement Award.

But Thomas was in for a bit of a surprise himself, as David Benedict arose to address the microphone to present a second award that evening. One of the hazards of organizing an award is that sometimes you don’t get it yourself. In this case, we just couldn’t let that happen to Thomas and so the ARTC Board of Directors had voted in secret to present Thomas with the award as well.

Thomas E. Fuller accepts the ARTC Lifetime Achievement Award.

Following the award presentation, we dove into The Dancer in the Dark.

Brad Strickland and Alton Leonard in The Dancer in the Dark — Brad Strickland and Alton Leonard in *The Dancer in the Dark*

The Dancer in the Dark was originally written in five half-hour segments. But those of you familiar with our convention shows know that we’re usually restricted to an hour. So Thomas painstakingly trimmed two and a half hours down to one. It is a testament to Thomas’s skill as a writer that he was able to do so and tell the entire story. The narrative details an archaeological dig and their discovery of the Malatowa Mounds. It starts off with a standard story of the struggle between academic exploration and the traditional beliefs of a small town’s residents, but quickly takes a decidedly Lovecraftian turn as mutilated animals start appearing mysteriously. And then the situation becomes much more serious as the Dancer’s last acolyte tries to raise an ancient evil from the mounds themselves.

Live Foley sound effects demonstrated — Foley artists and actors work together as a seamless whole

In the picture above you can see the Foley artists watching the actors closely for their cues. The creation of live sound effects is one of the most interesting parts of our live performances and is always enjoyed by our audiences.

Our technical team and our audience. Two critical componants of a successful show

And here you see one of the things that makes our Dragon Con shows so much fun: our appreciative audience! Our following at Dragon Con is quite loyal and we’re always glad to hear from folks, some of whom claim that they come to the convention every year just to see us!

The Dancer in the Dark is one of our favorite pieces and in 2013 we were finally able to release the full five parts on CD and digital download. But the production was incomplete without Thomas, who normally played Sheriff John Bell Hood Conklin. We miss you, Thomas.

Posted on June 12, 2014November 5, 2019 by David Benedict

30 Years of ARTC – Camp Wak-N-Hak 2002

In 2002 we were privileged to perform at Camp Wak-N-Hak, a summer camp for children with cystic fibrosis run by Camp Twin Lakes. This was a richly rewarding performance for us, and the kids really got into it. What did we perform? Well, that’s been lost to the sands of time, but we had a blast and that’s what’s really important.

Audience at Camp Wak-N-Hak — Our appreciative audience at Camp Wak-N-Hak

Acoustically, this spacious basketball court was challenging with its high ceilings and hard walls and floor, but once this great audience got seated they soaked up the audio extremely well!

Thomas Fuller and David Benedict look on as Colin Butler addresses the microphone.

It’s a pretty good bet that we did an episode of Rory Rammer, Space Marshal.

Phil Carter and Colin Butler perform as the rest of the cast looks on.

The stage setup was extremely nice. We perform in a wide variety of venues and often don’t get to see the actual performance space until we arrive to set up. We’ve worked around some rather interesting challenges with other people’s sets, cramped stage space, low doorways leading onto the stage itself, and a lack of any discernable stage whatsoever. But Camp Wak-N-Hak had a quality, picturesque space that it was a pleasure to perform on!

William Alan Ritch and Joel Abbott on the technical side of the show.

One challenge we sometimes face is placement of the tech. A lot of theatres rely on monitors or booths that are off to the side. Some are so small that they don’t have a designated place for tech at all – they do everything with vocal projection and don’t have any sound cues at all. We do as much live Foley as we can in a show, but we also run recorded SFX when necessary and our experience is that it sounds weird when you play a recorded sound to go with an unamplified voice in a radio play setting. So we always just set up the whole shebang every time and being able to be centered on the stage really helps the techs get a good mix.

Speaking of live Foley, here we see master Foley artist Lili showing off the tools of her trade. Foley is one of the most charismatic parts of radio theatre and we love to showcase it. We were lucky to be able to have the table up a little closer to the front for this show. Foley is awesome to see, but the space they take up and the sensitivity of the microphones we use usually make placement a bit of a strategic decision.

Ron Butler and Colin Butler in a bit of pre-show prep.

Big thanks to Ron Butler for helping set up this amazing show!

You can see the rest of the pictures on our Flickr album!

There Is Adventure In Sound

Category: 30th Anniversary