Tag: academy theatre

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Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea part 3 of 4

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Sometimes in the podcast we give credit to the lighting designer. This may seem strange to listeners who have never seen us perform live because it’s not like we’re showing a video of the performance. Why would we give a credit to the lighting designer when you can’t see their work?

Daniel Taylor, Clair W. Kiernan, and Daniel W. Kiernan
Here’s some of their work. Happy now?

Because at a live performance, the lighting can enhance even an audio experience in ways that are difficult to describe. In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea the characters are often underwater, outside of the Nautilus. During those times they can’t easily speak to each other, which makes dialogue challenging.

When we adapt H. P. Lovecraft, there often isn’t any dialogue at all, and so we just make some up. But in this case the passages where the characters are underwater are filled with lush descriptions of undersea life and landscapes that many of us will never see. We couldn’t just leave them out completely, nor could we make up dialogue that the other characters could never hear.

So we decided to create a music bed and have the characters each share their own perspective on what they were seeing through a triptych of interwoven monologues. In those instances the lighting helped the live audience adjust better to the transition.

Robert Drake
Robert Drake: Lightmaster

That lighting design is nearly always done by our host at the Academy Theatre, Robert Drake. So the next time you come out to see ARTC perform live anywhere where we have control over the lights (we usually don’t at our convention performances), ask if Robert’s around! And thank him for all his work!

ARTC’s next live show is at the Academy Theatre in Hapeville on March 28-29, 2015!

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31 Years of ARTC: Blues for Johnny Raven 2009

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 Avondale Estates, which featured our 2009 performance of Blues for Johnny Raven by Thomas E. Fuller. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

This was our 25th Anniversary performance, and so we really went all out, as they say.

Bill Kronick and Alton Leonard
Bill Kronick and Alton Leonard going “all out”.

Y’know, we talk about how surprising it is that we’ve lasted so long. But the truth is that good storytelling is and has always been valued, so it really shouldn’t be that surprising.

Mary Buchanan and Megan Tindale backstage.
Ok, maybe it’s a little surprising.

This performance featured some of our favorites, some blasts from the past, and was a ton of fun. We got to see our founder William Brown take the stage again to recite The Mountain Whippoorwill by Stephen Vincent Benet…

William Brown on stage.
You don’t often see someone playing the “air violin”.

…as well as one of our favorite Rory Rammer episodes: The Asteroid of Love.

Fiona Leonard, Megan Tindale, and Ariel Kasten sing with Ethan Hurlburt observing.
Featuring the beautiful Android Sisters!

We were also treated to Brad Strickland’s An Arkham Home Companion.

Brad Strickland
Brad Strickland, just telling a regular old story about a tentacled monster trying to steal an eldritch book.

We were also joined by our frequent musical guest Juliana Finch!

Juliana Finch
Juliana rocks harder than you.

And, lest we forget, the main attraction, Blues for Johnny Raven!

 

Fiona Leonard and Daniel Kiernan
Raven (Daniel Kiernan) listens to the case brought to him by Gloria Kinsolving (Fiona Leonard).
Brad Strickland and Daniel Kiernan
Raven (Daniel Kiernan) consults with his friend and informant, Benny the Gospel (Brad Strickland)
Mary Buchanan
Mary Buchanan takes a break from playing the sax.
Ariel Kasten and Megan Tindale
We have no idea what’s going on in this picture.

Blues for Johnny Raven is in the final stages of post-production now and will be available soon, first by download and later on CD!

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31 Years of ARTC: The Call of C’thulhu 2009

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!

This week we bring you our appearance at the Academy Theatre in Avondale Estates, which featured our 2009 performance of The Call of C’thulhu by H. P. Lovecraft, adapted for audio by Ron N. Butler. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

 

We’ve performed a lot of different places over the years. Hotel ballrooms. High school auditoriums. Hair salons. But one of our favorites from an acoustic point of view was the Avondale Estates location for the Academy Theatre.

Typical stage setup for ARTC
The stage is set…

Not too big, not too small, well lit, walls made of hard concrete. Well, maybe that last part wasn’t so great, but you can’t have everything.

A portion of the cast of
A portion of the cast of Night Call by Brian Phillips

At our 2009 performance, not only did we bring everyone the cosmic horror that is Lovecraft’s The Call of C’thulhu, we also brought Brian Phillips’s original audio drama Night Call and Kelley S. Ceccato’s The Worst Good Woman in the World!

Portion of the cast of
There’s really only one harmonica player here. But in audio, who can tell?
Tammie Hood and Clair W. Kiernan
Tammie Hood and Clair W. Kiernan. Hats? What hats?

We’ve talked before about how we don’t often do costumes, but every so often we just can’t help ourselves.

Tennille Clayton and Sonya at the Foley table.
High tech Foley. Squishiness comes at a price.
J. E. Hurlburt at the microphone for
Auditions for Lovecraft pieces sometimes consist of just a bunch of screaming.

Be sure to check out our performance calendar to see when you can see us next!

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31 Years of ARTC: Academy Theatre 2008

We spent a good part of last year documenting our last 30 years through photographs of our live performances. But wouldn’t you know it, we ran out of year before we ran out of pictures! So we’re going to continue on! And don’t forget our Chronology for a look at our 30 (and counting!) years of live performance!

This week we bring you our appearance at the Academy Theatre for The Colour Out of Space in 2008. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

This performance was our first at the Academy Theatre’s Avondale Estates location. We walked in not really knowing what to expect, and to a certain degree not really knowing exactly where it was (if you ever visited the Avondale location, you probably know what I mean).

Stage setup at Academy Theatre
If we’d expected the setup to be done for us, we were sorely disappointed.

But the cast settled in nicely to their new home away from home.

The cast prior to the performance.
If I talk about them like they’re pets…well, there’s a reason for that.

During a show, communication is key. You might think that with all that talking going on on stage that getting anything else said would be difficult, and you’d be right. But we still need to communicate between backstage, onstage, and the techs in the back to ensure that timing is maintained and that when things go haywire the actors know what to do.

The cast onstage at the Academy Theatre.
One of those things we do is to hold our hands over our mics so they can be muted before we adjust them.

We also wear a lot of different hats. It’s tempting to think that we all have well-defined roles, but the truth is that everybody pitches in for a good show.

Foley for 'The Colour Out of Space'.
Here we see Clair Kiernan, normally a voice actor, at the Foley table. Clair, you sly devil.
Recorded sound effects for 'The Colour Out of Space'.
David Benedict running recorded sound effects. Complete with dramatic lighting!

We’re hard at work on the studio version of The Colour Out of Space right now, so look for that in the store soon! (If you’re reading this in 2020 and it’s still not there, send help).

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30 Years of ARTC: An Atlanta Christmas 2008

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 for a look at our 30 (and counting!) years of live performance!

This week we bring you our appearance at the Academy Theatre for An Atlanta Christmas 2008. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

What else can we say about Christmas? We just finished up our 2014 edition of An Atlanta Christmas, its 15th consecutive year of production, and it’s always a fun time. It’s kind of interesting how we crave newness and novelty all year long, but around the holidays we get all nostalgic and don’t mind listening to the same songs (or audio dramas!) that we’ve heard a dozen times before.

Audience for 'An Atlanta Christmas' 2008
Case in point.

But it’s such a fun time! The reds! The greens! The getting to see people you haven’t seen in forever! The trying to cram in as much activity as possible while also shopping for people you suddenly realize you don’t know well enough and trying to live your normal life as well!

Jeff Montgomery, Laurice White, and Kelley S. Ceccato.
There’s a lot to do, is what we’re saying.

Plus, it’s different every year, while also staying the same. We shuffle the scripts around, we get new kids when the old ones get too big (everything gets exchanged just after Christmas, even actors).

Jonathan Strickland, Rachel Pendergrass, and Trudy Leonard.
Especially actors.

So we’ve put the wraps on Christmas for another year, but we’ll be back next year. And there’s still more Christmas pictures to post (we’re only up to 2008, after all). So, who knows? Maybe you’ll see Christmas in July.

Kris Kringle, Jayne Lockhart, Laurice White, and the Children's Ensemble.
But hopefully not wearing these outfits, unless you’re in the Southern hemisphere.

The 2008 production will live on in our hearts. We welcomed new performers. We made new memories. We refreshed ourselves. We did it again in 2009 all the way through 2014. And we’ll do it again in 2015.

The cast of
The cast of “An Atlanta Christmas 2008”