Tag: dark fantasy

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30 Years of ARTC: Dragon Con 2003

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. You can see all of the photos in their full size on our Flickr album!

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.

ARTC rehearsing for Dragon Con 2003
ARTC rehearsing for Dragon Con 2003

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.
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!

Rehearsals are usually a good time.
Rehearsals are usually a good time.

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!

Getting ready for showtime!
Getting ready for showtime!

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 ARTC sales table in 2003.
The ARTC sales table in 2003.

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!

James Leary performing with ARTC.
James Leary performing with ARTC.

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.
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!

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

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. You can see all of the photos in their full size on our Flickr album!

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.
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.
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
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!

Thomas Fuller and Doug Kaye
Thomas Fuller and Doug Kaye

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.

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The Doom of the Mummy part 2 of 4

Size: 8.5M Duration: 18:03

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This month we continue with our presentation of 2008’s performance of The Doom of the Mummy, performed live at Dragon Con.

Regina Maniquis on cello for Dragon Con 2008
Regina Maniquis on cello for Dragon Con 2008

The music for this performance was particularly special. We had the incomparable Brad Weage, and we also added in the talents of Alton Leonard, who played the lyre and the ugab. But the star of this musical show was Regina Maniquis on the cello.

Bill Ritch wrote an ambitious script that called for all kinds of authentic Egyptian music with authentic Egyptian instruments, but integral to the plot was this all-important cello.

We hope you enjoy it!

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30 Years of ARTC – All Hallows’ Moon, Dragon Con 2000

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. You can see all of the photos in their full size on our Flickr album!

Continuing our annual appearances at Dragon Con, and 2000 was a real doozy. First, it included one of Thomas E. Fuller’s best original pieces, All Hallows’ Moon. But we were also priveleged to perform an episode of Ron N. Butler’s Rory Rammer, Space Marshal series, The Queen of the Spaceways with Ted Raimi, Alexandra Tydings, and Claire Stansfield! All that plus Zap thy Neighbor by James P. Hogan, and you’ve got a stellar lineup!

Doug Kaye, Fiona K. Leonard, and Thomas E. Fuller set the scene in
Doug Kaye, Fiona K. Leonard, and Thomas E. Fuller set the scene in “All Hallows’ Moon”

ARTC doesn’t normally do costumes. It’s actually a long-running debate within the company – how to create visual appeal for a medium that doesn’t normally rely on visual appeal at all! But when you’re performing live, the audience expects to be able to see something and asking them to close their eyes can lead to inopportune snoring, so occasionally we give costumes a try.

David Benedict, Ron N. Butler, William L. Brown, Doug Kaye, Fiona K. Leonard, Daniel W. Kiernan, and Thomas E. Fuller portray the inhabitants of Mother Lode, New Mexico.
David Benedict, Ron N. Butler, William L. Brown, Doug Kaye, Fiona K. Leonard, Daniel W. Kiernan, and Thomas E. Fuller portray the inhabitants of Mother Lode, New Mexico.

Here’s another example of the costuming work for this piece. We have been very lucky to have a number of professional costumers work with ARTC in the past to help us on occasions such as this.

William L. Brown accepts the first ARTC Lifetime Achievement Award
William L. Brown accepts the first ARTC Lifetime Achievement Award

In 2000 we also debuted the ARTC Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in audio. Presented first to ARTC founder William L. Brown and informally known as the “Brownie”, the award was renamed as the Thomas E. Fuller Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

Ted Raimi, Karen Barrett, and Claire Stansfield perform in
Ted Raimi, Karen Barrett, and Claire Stansfield perform in Rory Rammer, Space Marshal: Queen of the Spaceways as Alexandra Tydings waits for her cue.

We also had the great honor of performing with three of the stars of Xena, Warrior Princess that year. Ted Raimi hammed it up as Rory Rammer, turning in an uproarious performance…that also happened to be about half an hour longer than we’d scheduled it for! Claire Stansfield and Alexandra Tydings were also spectacular in the roles of Michiko Sakai and Aphrodite DeHavilland.

Alexandra Tydings and Ted Raimi
Alexandra Tydings and Ted Raimi

This performance is still recalled fondly by those members of ARTC who were lucky enough to be present.

We hope you’re enjoying this look back at ARTC! If so, let us know! And don’t forget that your support is extremely important. Tell your friends! Tell your family! Buy a CD or make a donation!

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30 Years of ARTC – Throne of Shadows, Dragon Con 1999

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. You can see all of the photos in their full size on our Flickr album!

ARTC has been priveleged to perform at every single Dragon Con since the very beginning back in 1987. In 1999 we debuted the audio version of Thomas E. Fuller’s Throne of Shadows: The Last Relic of the Empire. It’s a complex story involving the Emperor of Mexico, an actress pushed to her limits of sanity, and an alternate history of the way things really went in 1867. But leaving geopolitics aside for a moment, the story is really about the love that Maximilian shared with his wife Carlota and how that love transcended death and madness.

The cast of
The cast of “Throne of Shadows”

In this photo we see an extremely young Sarah Taylor as the fictional Sofia, along with several other members of the cast of the production. We managed to get Sarah into the studio to record her lines while she still sounded like a girl instead of the young woman she has grown up to be. Also pictured, Trudy Leonard as Carlota, Dena Friedman Williams as the actress Victoria Forell, and Thomas E. Fuller as Emperor Maximilian.

Foley for
Foley for “Throne of Shadows”

Foley for Throne of Shadows was fairly involved. There was lots of walking around on castle floors when the scenes were set in Bavaria, but when the scenes magically shifted to the Mexican Empire in 1867, it was occasionally necessary to have dense foliage available. One side set in winter, the other in a glorious Mexican spring.

Brad Weage at the keyboard
Brad Weage at the keyboard

Brad Weage composed the haunting score, including the essential “Imperial Waltz”. For the final studio production, Joel Abbott provided a good deal of a replacement score, due to Brad’s original compositions being unavailable, but the “Imperial Waltz” lives on!

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The Doom of the Mummy part 1 of 4

Size: 7.3M Duration: 15:39

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Bill Kronick as Dr Creighton AlastairIn 2008 we performed The Doom of the Mummy at Dragon Con. The performance was dedicated to Thomas E. Fuller, who had already provided us with retellings of the classic monster stories The Passion of Frankenstein and The Brides of Dracula (not to mention an adaptation of The Invisible Man). Although he’d never really talked about it, it seemed natural to assume that he would follow those up one day with more audio dramas in the vein of the Universal Monsters by also retelling the time-honored tales of the wolfman, the mummy, and several others in that same vein.

Unfortunately, Thomas passed away in 2002 and we were never able to see what his vision for these classic monsters might have been. We are forced to fill the void ourselves, and have begun to do so with The Doom of the Mummy by William Alan Ritch and The Wood-Bound Werewolf by Kelley S. Ceccato.

Now, here in 2014, we dedicate this performance again, this time to Bill Kronick, himself recently passed away. Bill was a marvelous voice talent, a skilled improviser, and a great friend to all who knew him. We are proud to present his work here as Dr. Creighton Alastair.

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The Last Dragon to Avondale

Size: 38.7M, Duration: 26:51

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Fresh off our performance at the Academy Theatre comes the 2010 update of The Last Dragon to Avondale by Thomas E. Fuller.  We’d like to take just a moment to thank Bob Zimmerman for turning around the post-production of this piece so quickly for the podcast.

The Last Dragon to Avondale was performed as a benefit for the Georgia Aquarium.  Thanks to everybody who came out to support audio drama and the study of endangered species.  And what’s more endangered than the last fire-breathing dragon in the world?

The Last Dragon to Avondale, written for audio by Thomas E. Fuller

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The Crimson Hawk: The Widow’s Web

(Time 31:45, Size 14.5 MB)

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* Bumper’s Crossroads: Whole Lotto Shakin’ Going’ On by Daniel Taylor.

* Nikki’s Place: In a Bit of a Jam by Ron N. Butler.

* The Crimson Hawk: The Widow’s Web by Ron N. Butler (based on characters originated by Thomas E. Fuller.)