POWDER RIVER coming soon to Highway Service Centers!

Yep, you heard it right! POWDER RIVER is saddling up and hitting new trails, all repackaged and ready to entertain truckers and travelers across the country! In October, GDL Multi Media will release season one. We are very happy to be joining our friends at Jim French Productions to bring Audio Drama to the Interstate Highways at a low price; 5 episodes will be sold in each volume, in a two-CD set. The release date will be posted here.

A NEW BRADBURY PROJECT

In just a couple of weeks, Blackstone Audio will release our production of Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES!

I am VERY happy to announce that we are now working on our third collaboration with Mr. Bradbury - THE HALLOWEEN TREE. Our cast includes J.T. Turner along with some very talented youngsters - Matthew Scott Robertson, Anastas Varinos, Connor Doherty, Curtis Brauner, Dan Duran, Jacob Rosenbaum, Rob Cattell, and James McLean. Nancy Curran Willis directs, Chris Snyder is the producer, and Jeffrey Gage is working on the music. We hope to wrap up post production in January or February, 08.

Bloopers Anyone?

For the first time EVER, I have posted a few bloopers from some of our recording sessions on the CRT FAN SITE. There are a few from CAPTAIN BLOOD, FATHER BROWN, and POWDER RIVER. If people like them, I'll put some more up.

CRT's J.T.TURNER ON STAGE IN BOSTON

Any CRT fans in the Boston area Sept.7-Oct.13 should stop by the LYRIC STAGE COMPANYto see J.T. Turner in the role of the tavern keeper in MAN OF LaMANCHA! Last year J.T. got rave reviews as Ben Franklin in their production of 1776, and I'm sure this show will be every bit as good. J.T. appears with CRT as Westbrook Ahern in THE DIBBLE SHOW, Mr. Dark in SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (Oct. 1, Blackstone Audio), Lavasseur and the Governor in CAPTAIN BLOOD, several guest star roles in POWDER RIVER, FATHER BROWN, and his own A VISIT WITH AESOP.

SOMETHING WICKED arrives in OCTOBER!

We got word from Blackstone that our production of Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES will be released on CD, mp3 and Cassette Oct. 1st!
This is my favorite Bradbury story, and we got a good response from Bradbury authority Phil Nichols, of BradburymediaUk.com, and he said he would be posting his review when the show is released. Ray loved it also, which is the most important thing. Jeff's score is, again, fantastic, and the performances ain't too bad either! The two leads are played by Anastas Varinos (Treasure Island) and Matthew Scott Robertson (Guns of Powder River), and you can't miss the CHILLING performance by J.T. Turner as the evil Mr. Dark. Others in the cast include Diane Lind, Diane Capen,Tom Berry,Lincoln Clark,Teresa Goding, Shonna McEachern,Joseph Zamparelli Jr.,Marcia Friedman, Allysa Mello, Dan Gelinas, and Rik Pierce. The show was directed by Nancy Curran Willis, and the post producer was Chris Snyder.

Ray Bradbury wrote the script, based on his original novel!!

Sooo - if you're looking for a scary 2 hours for Halloween - put this on the CD player, turn the lights out - and this will surely put a chill up your spine! Info will be posted on the CRT website home page when ordering information is available. ~JR

GUNS OF POWDER RIVER RELEASE

It's finally here! We thought we would have this one out in July, but at last we are able to offer our 226th production - GUNS OF POWDER RIVER in download format. GUNS is a feature length program, and I think fans of the show will enjoy it (hopefully even non-fans :)

Most of the cast from season one returned to Studio G for the May 26th recording session: Shane Clarke, Sam Donato (from Florida no less), Cynthia Pape, Lincoln Clark, and it was great how everyone just fell into the old characters and made everything click. Chris Snyder did an outstanding post production. We are planning to release our next Powder River feature, POWDER RIVER and the MOUNTAIN OF GOLD late this fall, with our special guest stars Rex Trailer and Sgt. Billy O'Brien! But that's later! Right now - here's GUNS OF POWDER RIVER

ON XM AUG. 13 - 31

CAPTAIN BLOOD returns for a three week run on SONIC THEATER, XM. CH 163. Dramatized from the book by RAFAEL SABATINI.
MON: Kirke's Dragoons
TUE: Human Merchandise
WED: Plans of Escape
THU: Pirates!
FRI: The Rebel-Convicts

Late Night Conversation

I thought we would have released GUNS OF POWDER RIVER by now (I had promised mid-July), and hopefully we will have it on Spoken Net this week, and XM shortly afterward. I'm at the mercy of our editors, and I can only push so much. I haven't edited a show myself since DANDELION WINE a year ago! Sad to say our editor in Australia who I raved about has not worked out, as he left the FATHER BROWN project hanging with two incomplete acts of two different episodes, and an entire episode. Unprofessional and frustrating has been the experience "down under." He did great work, but if you don't deliver, you dont deliver.End of story. End of case. I should have noticed something was wrong as far back as April, when my eyebrow was first raised at one of the many excuses. I must be slipping, or getting old. The shows will now be completed by Chris Snyder when he gets a chance, but my hope of getting FATHER BROWN released this fall is pretty much crushed.

TOM SWIFT is now in post-production and sounds just fine! I think folks will like this little slice of Americana from the early 1900's.

We have upgraded our entire music department with the worlds best music software program! This cost a bundle and I am dying to hear the results. We are now in talks to bring a TV/ Movie Icon to life in Audio (as I mentioned before), and its possible that that production will be the first to debut with our new music program.

This coming week we have new air times on XM Radio. We were lucky, as many shows got the axe. We have a lot of loyal fans on XM, and they let XM know it! Our new times are ok, and we cant complain. We are going into our third season with Sonic Theater! THE DIBBLE SHOW is now airing Thursdays at 3:30, EST. Not the best slot for Dibble, which is mostly for kids (it will run 12:30 in the West, during school hours), but we'll take it. The staff at XM have been very good to us.

POWDER RIVER continues to generate fan mail here at CRT! We've had requests for autographed photos, scripts, caps, mugs. I think we need to get some stuff made up; what do you think?

It's a great feeling knowing that POWDER RIVER has caught on. The other night I was listening to the Radio Classics station on XM. It was an old Lone Ranger show from 65 years ago. I started wondering if, perhaps 65 years from now, when I'm long gone, if someone would be listening to a POWDER RIVER episode saying "Man, this thing was recorded 65 years ago!" It's a nice feeling, knowing that someone who perhaps isnt even born yet, might be enjoying your work years from now. I hope so, anyway.

3:10 To Yuma

Hey you Powder River fans, here's some cool news! On Sept. 7th the BEST
WESTERN in YEARS is going to be released nation wide! It's called 3:10
To Yuma, and it stars Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, and Peter Fonda.
Tonight I saw a sneak preview with J.T. Turner in Boston -with Peter
Fonda in the house! I can't say enough about this one. Wait till you
see it! Tonights screening had no credits and a slapped on music track -
but without all that, it is a powerful gutsy western the way John Ford
used to make them! Wait till you see it!You're gonna love it! Peter
Fonda delivers one of his best performances, and brings the Fonda
legend back to the classic westerns. Man oh man, what a night!
Hollywood can still deliver!

Ernie Day

I was very saddened to have read that Ernest Day had died this past November. Ernie was an INCREDIBLE cameraman, Director of Photography, and Second Unit Director.
I met Ernie in the summer of 1987 when I was in Montreal to start work on the film APRIL MORNING that was to Star Robert Urich and Tommy Lee Jones. Pretty much all of my two weeks on the picture was with second unit, and I got to know Ernie very well on the set. I couldn't believe I was working with the man who photographed LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, and I let him know it! We had a lot of laughs, and he was very giving of his time to me with all my questions about shooting a picture. A couple of days on the set when the rain poured down, he invited me to sit in the camera truck and we would discuss all the films he had worked on. He also gave me some really cool bits to do in the picture, and those are two weeks that I will always remember with great fondness. I wrote to him a couple of times after the movie ended, but, after time, as it is with many shows, the cast and crew drift apart. The last time I saw him was in the production office of the movie, and as I was leaving he said "I think we made a good one here!" I said something back like, "We'll do it again!" Well, we never did, and I never saw him again after that day.

I thought about him today, looked him up, and saw that he had passed away. A wonderful man. He was nominated for an Academy Award for A PASSAGE TO INDIA. Some of the films he photographed include BECKET, EXODUS, THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE, LORD JIM, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, RYANS DAUGHTER, NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, MOONRAKER, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, RAMBO 3, APRIL MORNING, and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, his final credited film.

So you've seen his work. Next time you see one of these pictures, know that they were shot by a good guy. a real good guy.