Tag: comedy
The Game is Afoot: Game the Fourth – The Ultimate Ultimatum
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We love all of our audiences and look forward to entertaining everyone, but some audiences have a special place in our hearts. 221B Con is one of them. Not least because we pack the house when we go there!

It’s such a ton of fun playing to these dedicated Sherlock Holmes fans. An iconic character, portayed by a variety of actors in a variety of ways, but without having to deal with all the time travel and blue police boxes. For this performance, we commissioned new scripts from Sketch MacQuinor. One was Commonplaces, by Naomi Novik (stay tuned to see if we can run that one on the podcast), and the other was The Game is Afoot: Game the Fourth – The Ultimate Ultimatum.

We also had a special guest for the show, David Nellist!

David was such a good sport about this. We only asked him if he’d appear on stage with us a few hours before show time, but he agreed to do it readily. Right up until the show itself, we were figuring out the logistics of when to have him approach the stage, how to introduce him, and going over his role.

And the fans LOVED it! Next year we hope to have him back in a more substantial (and audible) role, but for this year he honored us by appearing on stage, however briefly, and gamely played along with the joke. Thank you, David!

Thank you for listening! If you’re enjoying the podcast, be sure to support us on Patreon! Or just tell your friends about us!
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.

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.

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!


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


Be sure to check out our performance calendar to see when you can see us next!
31 Years of ARTC: Dragon Con 2008 part 2 – Not a Typo
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 second appearance at Dragon Con in 2008, which featured a number of short subjects that we dubbed Not a Typo. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

Scheduling difficulties had prevented us from having a second show at Dragon Con for a couple of years, but when we came back we knew we had to bring some great shows.

So we trotted out A Ship Named Francis, Haunter Hunters, Rory Rammer, Space Marshal: The Atomic Graveyard, Wikihistory, and The National Endowment for Space Art.

And, if we do say so ourselves, we totally blew the audience away!

And we’ve been doing two shows at that fine convention ever since! Stay tuned to see what’s in store for this year’s convention. In fact, you could even sign up for the newsletter to keep current!

Dash Cardigan part 4 of 4
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We now bring you the concluding chapter of the short version of Dash Cardigan!
It’s been a pleasure bringing you another year of free audio drama! Don’t forget us when it comes time for gift-giving and those tax-deductible charitable donations. You do know we’re a 501(c))(3), right? Lots of options on our donate page, so pick the method and the budget that’s right for YOU.
Thanks for listening! We’ll see you all again in 2015!
30 Years of ARTC: Gaylaxicon 2007
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 Gaylaxicon 2007. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.
Here at ARTC we have a special place in our hearts for our convention audiences. They turn up in droves and always appreciate what we offer up to them. And while we have our favorite haunts that we visit every year (LibertyCon, Dragon Con), we’re also keen on checking out new conventions, especially ones that pick new cities every year.

In 2007 we had an amazing opportunity. First we were invited to Gaylaxicon 2007, a first for us, and second we learned that one of the guests of the convention would be Keith Hartman! Keith used to be a regular member of ARTC, but then moved to Los Angeles to pursue fame and fortune, and has had quite a bit of success!

We performed some of our favorite pieces. Brotherhood of Damn Sassy Mutants, A Ship Named Francis, and The Shape of Things to Come.

And everybody had a wonderful time!


We’ve got plenty of convention shows planned for 2015! Hope to see YOU there!
Dash Cardigan part 3 of 4
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In the “better late than never” category, this month we present Dash Cardigan part 3 of 4, by Thomas E. Fuller.
We’d like to offer some standard advice to our fine listeners – take care of yourselves! Being sick is no picnic, and it’s what caused this episode to be delayed a bit. So take it from the fine folks at ARTC: get plenty of rest, wash your hands frequently, take your vitamins, and stay healthy!
If you’re enjoying the podcast, why not head on over to Patreon.com/artc. and lend us your support? You can also see other ways of ensuring the podcast keeps coming with a few other donation options. Thanks!
30 Years of ARTC: Sci Fi Summer 2006
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 Sci Fi Summer 2006. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.
Sci Fi Summer 2006 saw an action-packed performance featuring The Brotherhood of Damn Sassy Mutants, Mildly Exciting Tales of Astonishment, Rory Rammer, Space Marshal, our genre-bending sampler Time for Station Identification, and all of that wrapped up in a unique package we called Three Bad Writers!

We also tried a little experiment at this show. In the below picture, find the red dot that indicates the red microphone on the right, just to the right of Bob Zimmerman’s head. That’s David Benedict sitting and performing the recorded SFX as well as playing his part in the show.

Please note that we haven’t done this much. It worked, it was just inconvenient.
Sorry for the short update this week, folks. We’ll be back next time!
Dash Cardigan part 2 of 4
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This month we continue with Dash Cardigan by Thomas E. Fuller. If you’re enjoying the podcast, please let us know!
Dash Cardigan part 1 of 4
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Welcome again to the podcast! This month we bring you…
Now…here’s where things are going to get confusing. Dash Cardigan was originally written as a 13-part serial. So why is this just part 1 of 4? Because what you’ll hear on the podcast is the hour-long version.
We get some of our best audiences at conventions. LibertyCon, Dragon Con, 221B Con, and a great many others have all welcomed us. A convention appearance, however, has to work within the convention’s schedule, and panels are almost always an hour long. So that’s how long our shows have evolved to be over time.
We’ll be breaking out of that a little as we continue our work in the studio (the full 13-part series of Dash Cardigan as well as Nairobi Jack Rackham: The Lost Gold of the Atlantimengani are both on the slate and we already have the 5-part The Dancer in the Dark), but you can always count on us having shorter versions of longer stories at conventions!