Tag: robert heinlein

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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: Dragon Con 2004 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!

Last week we talked about having Harlan Ellison perform The Shadow Over Innsmouth with us, and that was definitely exciting, but it was only the beginning of the festivities. We also had on the schedule The Menace From Earth by Robert A. Heinlein with a special guest!

Jewel Staite appears in 'The Menace From Earth'
Jewel Staite! …with Tamara Morton.

For those of you who don’t know (and we’d be interested to know how many of our fans don’t know this), Jewel Staite is probably best known as Kaylee from the short-lived series Firefly. We were thrilled to have her be a part of this show.

Jewel Staite, Jack Mayfield, and Sarah Taylor.
Jewel Staite, Jack Mayfield, and Sarah Taylor.

Jewel was a delight to work with. Many of our guest stars are given the opportunity to be in an episode of Rory Rammer or some similarly comedic or light-hearted piece. The Menace From Earth isn’t super-serious, but it does require an emotional range that we don’t often subject our guests to, and Jewel turned in a spectacular performance on very little rehearsal.

Cast photo from 'The Menace From Earth'
Cast photo from The Menace From Earth

We’d love to have the opportunity to work with her again! So, Jewel, if you’re reading this and wondering when you can get back in for some audio drama fun, just give us a call! 🙂

But that’s not all!

Alton Leonard and Brad Weage accept the Thomas E. Fuller Lifetime Achievement Award
Alton Leonard and Brad Weage accept the Thomas E. Fuller Lifetime Achievement Award

We were also priveleged to be able to honor our longtime musicians Alton Leonard and Brad Weage with the Thomas E. Fuller Lifetime Achievement Award.

Music done right augments an audio drama in ways that are difficult to describe. It creates a mood, but doesn’t distract. Both of these two musicians have mastered the art and demonstrated tremendous flexibility. Whether we need an atmospheric bed under a tense scene or just a bit of jaunty music to transition from one scene to the next, Alton and Brad can provide. Even after his untimely passing, Brad’s music lives on through recordings, and we are the richer for it. And Alton is still chugging away, most recently providing amazing scores for our Direct to Digital releases The Mark of the Beast and Dr. Geoffry Stanhope, Investigator of Occult Phenomena: The Dweller in the Depths.

All in all, a landmark year for ARTC!

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30 Years of ARTC – Solution Unsatisfactory, Dragon Con 2001

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!

Last week we brought you the story of Guards! Guards! at Dragon Con 2001. But we’ve been doing two shows at that convention for several years now and the second part of that double bill in 2001 was Robert Heinlein’s Solution Unsatisfactory.

Harlan Ellison introduces Atlanta Radio Theatre Company at Dragon Con 2001
Harlan Ellison introduces Atlanta Radio Theatre Company at Dragon Con 2001

First, we got things started off with a bang by being introduced by the legendary Harlan Ellison. Mr. Ellison has performed with us in the past and we were honored to be graced with his presence once again, even though he did not act with us in this production.

Henry Howard is presented with the ARTC Lifetime Achievement Award
Henry Howard is presented with the ARTC Lifetime Achievement Award

Shortly afterwards we took a moment to present Henry Howard, owner and operator of Audio Craft Studio, with the ARTC Lifetime Achievement Award. Henry’s studio has served us well for years, and he was instrumental in our acquisition of ARTC Studio. He has also produced and edited a huge amount of our work and we make use of his expertise whenever possible.

Thomas E. Fuller performs the iconic opening lines from Rory Rammer, Space Marshal
Thomas E. Fuller performs the iconic opening lines from Rory Rammer, Space Marshal

And we led off the performance with Rory Rammer, Space Marshal! The name of the exact episode has been misplaced, so if you were there, let us know what we did at this show and we’ll edit this to reflect it. But no matter which episode it was, it was a rip-roaring good time!

Daniel Kiernan and David Benedict share a laugh during the performance.
A rip-roaring good time

See? A rip-roaring good time!

Peter David and Alton Leonard in Solution Unsatisfactory
Peter David and Alton Leonard in Solution Unsatisfactory

After the Rory Rammer episode, we got to the main event. In addition to all the other star power we commanded in 2001, we were also joined by Peter David!

A scene in a radioactive room features the actors wearing masks to muffle their voices, just as their characters would be muffled.
A scene in a radioactive room

One scene in Solution Unsatisfactory features the characters in a room filled with radioactivity. They were wearing full lead armor in the script. We simulated that with standard filtering face masks.

Be sure to check out the rest of the album for even more great pictures!

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30 Years of ARTC – The Man Who Traveled in Elephants

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.

In 1998, ARTC experienced an important moment in its history as we unveiled the first in our Dean’s List series of Robert A. Heinlein adaptations, The Man Who Traveled in Elephants. And, boy, did we go all out. You can see all of the below photos at full size in our Flickr gallery.

First, if you’ve read the story, you may notice that it’s not quite like anything else that Heinlein wrote for the most part. In fact, Bill Ritch and Brad Linaweaver, who were instrumental in helping us get the rights from Virginia Heinlein to do this adaptation, described it as “Bradburyesque,” referring to legendary science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. Wouldn’t it be fun, we imagined, if we could get Ray Bradbury to introduce us?

Ray Bradbury introduces Atlanta Radio Theatre Company at Dragon Con 1998
Ray Bradbury introduces Atlanta Radio Theatre Company at Dragon Con 1998.

So that happened. You can even hear the recording of the introduction on our studio production of the script.* Then, how about a bunch of guest stars. Like maybe Anthony Daniels. Or even Harlan Ellison, a legendary writer in his own right!

Anthony Daniels and Harlan Ellison share a stage with Daniel Taylor of ARTC.
Anthony Daniels and Harlan Ellison share a stage with Daniel Taylor of ARTC.

So that happened, too. And then we’d cap the whole thing off by making it a tribute to the Dean of American Science Fiction himself.

A tribute to Robert A. Heinlein with Harlan Ellison, Brad Linaweaver, and William Alan Ritch.
A tribute to Robert A. Heinlein with Harlan Ellison, Brad Linaweaver, and William Alan Ritch.

The presence of scream queen Brinke Stevens in our opening piece, A Real Babe (by Brad Linaweaver, adapted for audio by William Alan Ritch) was just the icing on the cake.

Scream queen Brinke Stevens in
Scream queen Brinke Stevens in “A Real Babe”.

It was a performance for the ages. It was something nobody on the stage will ever forget.

*The Man Who Traveled in Elephants is currently available for sale exclusively at our live performances. We are hopeful to bring it back to general release in the near future through all of our digital and mail order distributors.

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All You Zombies… Part 3 of 3

This month: Size: 6.9M Duration: 14:40

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This month we bring you All You Zombies… by Robert A. Heinlein, adapted for audio by Victor Koman, performed live at the Heinlein Centennial Convention in Kansas City, MO, July 7, 2007.

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All You Zombies… Part 2 of 3

This month: Size: 8.2M Duration: 17:35

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This month we bring you All You Zombies… by Robert A. Heinlein, adapted for audio by Victor Koman, performed live at the Heinlein Centennial Convention in Kansas City, MO, July 7, 2007.

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All You Zombies… Part 1 of 3

This month: Size: 7.93M Duration: 17:20

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This month we bring you All You Zombies… by Robert A. Heinlein, adapted for audio by Victor Koman, performed live at the Heinlein Centennial Convention in Kansas City, MO, July 7, 2007.

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Our Fair City part 1 of 2

Size and duration unknown.

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This month we bring you Our Fair City by Robert A. Heinlein, adapted for audio by Brad Strickland and Thomas E. Fuller, performed live at LibertyCon in Chattanooga, TN on July 11, 2009. This is part of our Dean’s List series, available through our website.

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Solution Unsatisfactory part 3 of 3

Size: 8.4M Duration: 17:51

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This week we are pleased to continue our podcast of the Dragon*Con 2001 production of Robert A. Heinlein’s Solution Unsatisfactory.  Guest starring in this production are Peter David and Lisa Getto.