Tag: live performance

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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: All You Zombies… 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 Stage Door Players in 2007. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

In 2007 we made our second performance at Stage Door Players in Dunwoody with All You Zombies… by Robert A. Heinlein.

Stage setup at Stage Door Players
Stage setup at Stage Door Players

Sadly for many of our fans, there are no actual zombies in All You Zombies… Instead, it is the classic time travel paradox story of a man who probably knows himself a little too well.

Stage setup with actors
Stage setup with actors

The show is a ton of fun and we hope to get it into the studio someday!

Stage setup with tech
Stage setup with tech

In the meantime, we still need to write some stories with actual zombies before the zombie craze is behind us.

Backstage setup
Backstage setup. Note the highly nutritious snacks.
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30 Years of ARTC: Pirate Day 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 Talk Like a Pirate Day 2006. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

In 2006 we returned for what is so far our final appearance at Barnes and Noble for Pirate Day. We had a blast at these, but time marches on and we’ve just been so busy since then! If you’d like to see more piratey shenanigans, let us know and we’ll get right on it!

Clair Kiernan, Jonathan Strickland, and Hal Wiedeman perform.
This isn’t really what scurvy looks like.

Bookstore performances are a ton of fun, but make for some interesting experiences. For example, you may notice the coffee shop behind us in that above picture. Imagine trying to do a performance with an espresso machine behind you. There’s also the audience factor – they’re not lined up in neat little rows listening with rapt attention. They’re browsing books, meeting friends, drinking coffee. We were audible all over the store, so people just listened where they were.

The audience for Talk Like a Pirate Day
We love the fact that one couple brought lawn chairs.

But there were a small group of people who camped out on the floor and had a great time!

Brad Weage performs an illusion.
Piracy is magical.

We would be remiss if we didn’t talk about Brad Weage at this performance, also. In addition to being a wizard on the keyboards, Brad was also an accomplished magician. We didn’t often find a way to incorporate this skill into our shows, but when we did it was a real blast.

Clair Kiernan, Terry Sanders, Daniel Kiernan, and Hal Wiedeman perform.
More pirates than you can shake a stick at.
Clair Kiernan, Kelley S. Ceccato, and Caran Wilbanks perform.
Lady pirates!

A fitting conclusion to the Pirate Hunter trilogy!

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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!

Sci Fi Summer cast
Not pictured: 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.

Sci Fi Summer cast and crew
Pictured: Experimentation

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!

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30 Years of ARTC: Libertycon 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 Libertycon 2006. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

Ah, Libertycon. What can we say that hasn’t already been said? Some of our most appreciative audiences attend Libertycon, but it isn’t the madhouse that Dragon Con is (not that we don’t love Dragon Con, too…it’s just that one madhouse per year is sufficient!)

Jonathan Strickland, Trudy Leonard, and Ariel Kasten at Libertycon
Jonathan Strickland approves of Libertycon

In 2006 we brought William Alan Ritch’s powerhouse, The Doom of the Mummy to Libertycon for its debut performance.

Doom of the Mummy cast
Doom of the Mummy cast

It seems like all of our monster-related performances are difficult to produce. The Passion of Frankenstein has about a billion recorded sound effects (in addition to the Foley), The Brides of Dracula requires our best singers to be the brides, and The Doom of the Mummy is no exception, as it requires a cello – not part of our usual musical accompaniment.

Daniel Taylor at the Foley table
It can be somewhat startling

But, as always, we rose to the occasion with Sheila Ameri on cello, Brad Weage on the keyboards, and a stellar cast (many of whom were, unfortunately, unable to reprise their roles for the 2008 Dragon Con performance – luckily we can assemble several stellar casts when necessary).

Cast of Doom of the Mummy
More cast

But enough about the cast. Here are our amazing musicians!

Brad Weage on keyboards
Brad Weage on keyboards (plural!)
Sheila Ameri on cello
Sheila Ameri on cello
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30 Years of ARTC: Barnes and Noble 2005

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 Barnes and Noble Perimeter for Talk Like a Pirate Day in 2005. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

A short update this week, but we just couldn’t resist posting these pictures. In 2005 we continued our relationship with Barnes and Noble Perimeter with a reading of the classic book Bunnicula.

Daniel W. Kiernan as the vampire bunny, Bunnicula.
Menacing.
The cast of Bunnicula.
No produce was safe.
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30 Years of ARTC: Halloween 2005

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.

This week we bring you our appearance at Barnes and Noble Perimeter for Talk Like a Pirate Day in 2005. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

It’s October! Our favorite month of the year! A time of witches, ghosts, goblins, and things that go bump in the night. We’re especially fond of things that go bump in the night. It’s that magical time when people really let their imaginations run away with them, and we love that!

ARTC takes the stage!
Imagine there’s a set here.

We get some of our best non-convention audiences around Halloween. Specializing in horror and science fiction, as we do, it’s no wonder that people are looking for something a little extra. Something that goes beyond the usual slasher serial killers the movies so often give us.

ARTC at Stone Mountain Park
We don’t do serial killers. We do killer serials!

At our 2005 performance we got a chance to show off some of our less elaborate, but still really spooky, Halloween material. We brought out Armada Rising about the Spanish Armada risen from the depths, an episode of Dr. Geoffry Stanhope about the Loch Ness Monster, and a bunch of other treats for our audience that year!

ARTC tech and musicians make for an amazing show!
The horror of the tech crew. The horror.

And this year we’re getting the chance to bring some of that unproduced material into ARTC Studio! So you’ll get a chance to hear it yourself very soon!

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30 Years of ARTC: Pirate Day 2005

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.

This week we bring you our appearance at Barnes and Noble Perimeter for Talk Like a Pirate Day in 2005. Check out all the pictures on our Flickr album.

Daniel and Clair Kiernan
Daniel and Clair Kiernan talking like pirates.

After our extremely popular appearance in 2004 for Talk Like A Pirate Day, we decided to head back to the high seas again the next year with another installment of Brad Strickland’s Pirate Hunter series!

ARTC performs at Barnes and Noble Perimeter for Talk Like a Pirate Day
Piratey shenanigans

These shows really give us an opportunity to connect with our younger audiences. If you were at one of these shows (now 9 years ago, gulp!) and are still with us, let us know!

ARTC in a rare costumed appearance
Pirate costumes of varying quality

It also gives our costumers an opportunity to show off their skills and lets us point out the non-costumers in the group.

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30 Years of ARTC: Dragon Con 2005 part 2

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 Dragon Con theme, we now present The Weapons Shop by A. E. van Vogt. This was a great year for ARTC as we got to perform alongside Battlestar Galactica star Richard Hatch and we also announced a new imprint that will hopefully see its first title released next year, The Sound of Liberty!

Richard Hatch with Brad Strickland
Richard Hatch with Brad Strickland

In 2005 ARTC created the Sound of Liberty project, a unique initiative to identify and adapt works of classic science fiction that put a focus on freedom and liberty. In the intervening time we’ve been busy finding suitable titles and negotiating with the authors. We hope to have the first title on this exciting new category for sale by next year, but the first title to be performed was The Weapons Shop by A. E. van Vogt.

Lydia van Vogt
Lydia van Vogt

We were pleased to have been granted the rights for this performance by his widow, Lydia van Vogt.

Chuck Hammill and Brad Linaweaver introduce
Chuck Hammill and Brad Linaweaver introduce The Weapon Shops

We’re really looking forward to diving into some of these amazing stories!

Cast photo from
Cast photo from The Weapon Shops

A great performance with a stellar cast! This one’s headed for ARTC Studio very soon!

Gerald W. Page accepts the Thomas E. Fuller Lifetime Achievement Award
Gerald W. Page accepts the Thomas E. Fuller Lifetime Achievement Award

We also got to honor one of our longtime writers, Gerald W. Page. You can hear his work in our catalog on The Assassins and The Happy Man! Thanks for all the great stories, Gerry!