Friday, September 28, 2007

57 - Solution Unsatisfactory part 2

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.

Size: 8.4M Duration: 17:53

Thursday, September 20, 2007

56 - Solution Unsatisfactory part 1

Back in 2001 we performed an adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's Solution Unsatisfactory. As you might expect, we were very proud and excited to present a work by such a well-regarded author. And since it was written in 1941 we were already aware that Mr. Heinlein had seemingly seen the future of world events by predicting the use of atomic weapons, although in a different form.

Little did we realize how memorable this performance would become. Performed live on August 31, we planned studio time for September 12, 2001. Needless to say we moved this production up in the queue.

Guest starring in this production are Peter David and Lisa Getto.

Duration: 18:57 Size: 8.8M

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Another photo from "Guards! Guards!"


John Rhys-Davies
Originally uploaded by dtaylor404
John Rhys-Davies and Daniel Taylor. Background: David Benedict, Jonathan Strickland, Brad Strickland. Yes, there were plenty of people in this play with larger roles than me, but I'm running this blog. So sue me. Photo by Ken Grimes.

55 - Guards! Guards! part three

Welcome to part three, the final chapter of our 2001 Dragon*Con performance of Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett, adapted for audio by David Benedict, featuring John Rhys-Davies as Lupine Wonse.

I hope everyone has been enjoying hearing this as much as I enjoyed adapting it. Being able to share it with a mass audience has brought back a lot of the enthusiasm I had when I was working on the project originally. I occasionally felt as though I were summoning dragons myself as I constructed them out of pure sound.

As part of this production, ARTC made a donation to the Orangutan Foundation International, an organization dedicated to the preservation of the orangutan and its natural habitat.

Size: 12M Duration: 25:56

Thursday, September 06, 2007

54 - Guards! Guards! part 2

Size: 11.5M Duration: 24:33

Welcome to part two of our 2001 Dragon*Con performance of Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett, adapted for audio by David Benedict, featuring John Rhys-Davies as Lupine Wonse.

As I mentioned last week, the adaptation for this production was particularly difficult. It is a full-length novel, rich with character development, humor, plots and subplots, and is considered by many to be a fine starting point for those wishing to get into the Discworld series. When compressing it down into an hour, most of that stuff had to go out the window. When we read the first draft it took over two hours and we didn't finish. That's when I knew I had my work cut out for me.

For those of you who have read the original book, I agonized over the scene with the prospective dragon hunters who were all complaining about how you don't get respect from monsters anymore and how one monster's mother actually came round to complain after he was killed and his head put up over the door. For those of you who haven't, don't think this adaptation even begins to cover the depth of this book. Read it.

As part of this production, ARTC made a donation to the Orangutan Foundation International, an organization dedicated to the preservation of the orangutan and its natural habitat.