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31 Years of ARTC: The Last Dragon to Avondale 2010

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 October 2010 where we performed The Last Dragon to Avondale along with The House Across the Way, featuring music by Brad Weage and Paul Mercer, and Rory Rammer, Space Marshal: The Colour of the Shadow of the Outsider Over the Mountains of Madness Out of Space. This performance was a benefit for Georgia Aquarium (it was one of our first benefit performances, in fact!) and also included special musical guest Rooke! Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

In 2010 we debuted our Partners in Imagination program, which strives to harness the power of multiple non-profit groups into something stronger by raising awareness amongst our various audiences and maybe even a little money as well.

Megan Tindale and Brian Troxell
Psst…there’s not a lot of money in this…at least not yet.

We had originally wanted to do this benefit for Georgia Aquarium with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but it became apparent very quickly that the script wouldn’t be ready in time, so we switched gears to The Last Dragon to Avondale. We felt that its focus on an “endangered species” made it a great fit.

Andrew Chiang and Sonya Arundar
“You keep telling yourself that, ok?”

Plus, we’d been performing at the Academy Theatre in Avondale Estates for a while at this point and to NOT perform this piece there would have been a crime against … well, a crime against something. Dragons, maybe.

The audience for
We got a good turnout, too!

We also had the privilege of working with some amazing musicians on this piece. There was Brad Weage.

Brad Weage
The very serious Brad Weage

Paul Mercer on violin. This was Paul’s first appearance with us!

Paul Mercer
The equally serious Paul Mercer

And our special musical guest, Rooke! Rooke has been around since the late 1980s and play a kind of (in their words) acid folk. We couldn’t quite get the whole band for this show, but we were thrilled to get Steven Sams, David Cater, and Keena Graham!

Steven Sams, Keena Graham, and David Cater
The not-quite-so-serious Rooke!

Rooke actually released an album of the recordings from this performance, so go get some great music!

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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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30 Years of ARTC: Dragon Con 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 Dragon Con 2007. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

In 2007 we had only one performance at Dragon Con for a change, and so we knew we had to bring a new episode of Rory Rammer. That episode was Madhouse in the Sky.

Clair W. Kiernan
We’re all mad here.

But more than that, we knew we needed to bring something we knew our audience would enjoy. So we brought The Challenges of Brave Ragnar.

Phil Carter
Just look at all that majesty.

As with many ARTC serials, we have two versions of Brave Ragnar. The version we performed in 2007 was the “short” 1-hour version, but we’ll be bringing it into ARTC Studio in its full 13 episode glory very soon!

Jonathan Strickland, Alton Leonard, and Phil Carter.
Glorious

Want to know more about Brave Ragnar and other serials from ARTC? Check this page out!

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30 Years of ARTC: Dragon Con 2005 part 1

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’re still on a Dragon Con high (or still getting over con crud, your choice), so this week we bring you the 2005 edition! Hey, they’re our biggest audiences of the year, I think we can be forgiven for spending some extra time on these great fans!

If there’s one thing we know for sure at ARTC it’s that we’re nothing without our writers, and we’ve been very lucky to have worked with some of the best. Writing audio drama isn’t done much anymore, and finding someone who can write it well is uncommon. We have an extensive workshopping process to make sure that our scripts are their very best before we present them to our listening audience.

At this Dragon Con, we featured several of our newer writers, who have since gone on to write some really incredible stuff!

Jonathan Strickland
Jonathan Strickland

Jonathan Strickland has written a lot, but for this performance we featured an episode from his Mildly Exciting Tales of Astonishment (META) series.

Sketch MacQuinor
Sketch MacQuinor

Sketch MacQuinor seems to write all the time, although sometimes he only writes it in his head. For this performance we showcased the Brotherhood of Damn Sassy Mutants (work out that initialism on your own, kids), but he’s also created The Game is Afoot!, Blue Hannukchristmas Carol, and lots of other stuff too numerous to mention here.

We also performed Rory Rammer, Space Marshal and The Adventure of Brave Ragnar, but somehow managed not to get a picture of Ron N. Butler or Kelley S. Ceccato this year.

Brad Strickland
Brad Strickland disapproves of this egregious oversight.

And after the writing is done, it’s time for the rest of the team to swing into action!

The cast warms up for the performance.
First, warmups.

Vocal warmups are vital to a good performance. Here you can see the ‘huddle’ style.

Brad Weage and Joel Abbott go over the musical score before the show.
Music is important, too.

Music and tech work closely together to ensure everything is plugged in and functional.

Foley artists creating live sound effects.
Foley gets into the mix.

It’s not a radio show without Foley!

David Benedict and Jack Mayfield perform.
And then it’s showtime!

We still aren’t sure what Jack Mayfield is looking at in this picture.

We’ll be back next week with part 2 of Dragon Con 2005!

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Christmas Rose

Size: 7M Duration: 14:54

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Well, here we are.  The end of another year of podcasting for ARTC.  Ok, fine, we didn’t exactly podcast for the whole year, but the point is that we took some needed time off and came back with a better situation than we had before.  We’re looking forward to podcasting at least monthly and more often when we can.

This week we bring you Christmas Rose by Kelley S. Ceccato, performed live at the Academy Theatre in Avondale Estates, GA, on December 6 and 7, 2008.

This story is one of my personal favorites of Kelley’s.  She’s written lots of stuff for us and continues to improve in her craft and we are very lucky to have her.  We hope you enjoy it.

As we move into the New Year we at ARTC hope that all of you enjoy all of the magic that your imaginations can provide.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone and we’ll see you next year!

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Nothing-At-All Part 2 of 2

Size: 10M Duration 21:47

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This month we bring you Nothing-at-All, written for the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company by Kelley S. Ceccato, performed live at the Academy Theatre in Avondale Estates, GA on October 25 and 26, 2008.

As promised, this month we bring you a second podcast with part two of Nothing-at-All by Kelley S. Ceccato.

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Nothing-At-All Part 1 of 2

Size: 10M, Duration: 21:28

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This month we bring you Nothing-at-All, written for the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company by Kelley S. Ceccato, performed live at the Academy Theatre in Avondale Estates, GA on October 25 and 26, 2008.

Due to length, this podcast will be in two parts.  But, in the spirit of the upcoming holiday season, we’re giving you the gift of TWO podcasts this month.  Tune in here this time next week for the concluding part of Nothing-at-All.