Tag: dark fantasy

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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.)

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To Dine with the Devil

(32 Minutes, 14.9 M)

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by Ivan Turgenev
Adapted for Audio by Joyce Leigh
Performed Live at Sci Fi Summer 2003 in Atlanta, Georgia

The old Russian proverb states:
“Those who dine with the devil may end up on the menu.”

If you like H.P. Lovecraft, you’ll love this….Not for the squeamish.

Credits:

Voice Talent (in alphabetical order): David Benedict, Phil Carter, Doug Kaye, Clair Kiernan, Daniel Kiernan, Joyce Leigh, Trudy Leonard
Original Music by Alton Leonard and Brad Weage
Directed by Doug Kaye
Sound Engineering by David Carter and William Alan Ritch assisted by Ray Spitz
Sound Effects by Henry Howard
Live Foley by Lili and Sonya and assisted by Anthony Fuller

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Post-Halloween Extravaganza (Into the Labyrinth)

Time: 24:04  Size: 27.55 MB

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You say you can’t get enough Trick or Treating? You say that you spent most of October looking for TV special with the “Round-Headed Kid” on DVD? You say haven’t slept for 48 hours because of the insane sugar rush? Is that’s what’s troubling you, Pilgrim?

Seriously though. We have two shows from Into the Labyrinth 2005: Farm Report of the Worlds by Brad Strickland and Penny Dreadful, by Kelly Swilley

Farm Report of the Worlds: Imagine you’re waking up to AM Radio… the morning *after* the night that H.G. Wells’ Martians attacked.

Penny Dreadful: And what happens when a lost book by an unknown author suddenly and mysteriously appears on a library shelf?

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Into the Labyrinth part 1

time: 15:24 (7.05 MB)

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A few years ago ARTC had an opportunity to perform a Halloween show for the public.  We try to perform in October whenever possible as it is a month especially suited to our horror and science fiction roots.  Our forte has always been conventions and other semi-private events where our time slot was somewhat limited and so we usually only had time for one feature piece, or maybe a series of shorts.  We always performed them just once.

But when you perform for the public you sometimes have the opportunity to repeat a show or even…dare I say it…have a run of a show.  Furthermore, we were able to expand the time slot to include the series of shorts and the feature piece.  Faced with the prospect of having more material to work with than usual and the fact that very few people had heard of any of our work at the time (outside of our loyal fans…hi, everybody) we felt the need to choose a marketable title for the overall show.  We found one in our own catalog.

Into the Labyrinth was (and is) our in-house imprint for original horror and dark fantasy.  It was one of our first, along with the audio magazine The Centauri Express, and the introduction about the “simple garden maze”, masterfully presented by William Brown, appears on a number of our studio productions.  It seemed appropriate to use the title to help promote our live show of similar material.

As our podcast continues, you will hear many excerpts from various Into the Labyrinth shows.  We hope you enjoy them all.  This week features Mildly Exciting Tales of Astonishment: Sweet Revenge and Nikki’s Place: The Collectors.