It started back in 2001, at Minicon 36. In honor of being Fan Guest of Honor, Jo Walton wrote a hubristic fanfic play. She tells more about it at her LiveJournal. I got to read the role of Sir Simon. It was the highlight of a fantastic con.Fast forward a decade. I'd started doing public domain recording for LibriVox, including dramatic works such as Shakespeare plays, and it gave me the idea to produce a recording of Jo's play. Unlike the LibriVox recordings, it wouldn't be public domain, but it could be released under Creative Commons (as were the Girl Genius radio plays).
I tried to get as many of the people from the original Minicon reading to participate as I could. The title role had been read by the late John M. Ford, alas; but Kip Williams, who at least attended that con, filled in for him. Counting him, half the roles in this production are read by people from Minicon. Others I recruited from Making Light, from the LibriVox community, and from my own family.
I was able to record Elise Matthesen as Janet first, and her performance could literally be called inspiring, for it was so good that it gave me a new determination to see the project through so that it would not be lost to the world. Kip Williams also deserves special mention for recording all his lines several times, providing me with retake options above and beyond the call of duty.
I wanted to have some music, and sound effects. I had a recording of a band named Annwn (now, sadly, broken up) playing a reel called Tam Lin. What could be more appropriate to use? I was able to contact the band's leader and get permission to use the recording. It turned out that the reel was a modern composition by an artist named Davey Arthur. I was able to contact Mr. Arthur as well for permission. I thank them both. LibriVox had a link to a site of public domain music recordings, MusOpen.org, where I found some dances useful for the festival scene. And FreeSound gave me some ambient noise recordings for the forest scenes.
Here's a list of the players, in order of appearance:
