by Sandra Murphy
A museum, disappearing employees, dragons—this is the audio drama you want to hear. Hundreds of sound effects, a kickass musical score, an immersive soundscape, and eighteen actors (one in Scotland, one Canadian, and the rest scattered across the States) make this unique story come to life.
The official description:
“Welcome to the Museum of the Omniverse where you safely experience actual events from every possible part of time and space. The museum experiences technical difficulties, however. Space time rifts have opened throughout the museum and everyone disappeared except for Mirandum, an exhibit curator. When a small group of visitors appears, Mirandum gives them a tour of the museum’s Dragon Exhibit while searching for clues to the museum’s ultimate fate.”
How does something like that come about? Years ago, David Lee Summers, fantasy author and publisher, and Eric Schumacher, multimedia producer/director/actor and president of Seelie Studios, had dinner at Tuscon, a sci-fi, fantasy, and horror convention in Tucson, Arizona. By the time they finished their burgers, the question ‘how do we use our mutual skills and resources to do something really helpful for authors and fellow creators?’ grew into a project.
Sidetracked by COVID, Seelie Studios wasn’t available to host local actors in person. The plan to recruit talent from around the world who worked from home studios was born of creativity, practicality, and done under the direction of Schumacher and co-director Tyrel Good.
The Museum of the Omniverse is the first volume in what is intended to be (at least) a ten-volume series of audio dramas featuring stories from a diverse scope of authors in the science fiction and fantasy fields. Each anthology will focus on a different sub-genre (the first with stories about dragons) and will wrap around an overarching storyline related to the Museum of the Omniverse itself.
Listen to samples!
Nashville, Tennessee based musician and composer Jeff Moon created an original soundtrack which became a separate musical album release for the series as well. Science fiction and fantasy artist Laura Givens created stunning and unique cover art for each story in the series which will also be available as separate merchandise releases. After many months of developing production and postproduction strategies, the team announced the release of volume 1, Museum of the Omniverse: Dragon Exhibit. Volume 2: Museum of the Omniverse: Spacefarer’s Exhibit is currently in production.
Eric Schumacher is a multiple award-winning and critically acclaimed actor/director/producer known for his work in Westerns and sci-fi/fantasies. A principal cast member and co-producer of two of the three Revenge of Zoe nerd comedy feature films, he reports they’ll be released as a trilogy from Bayview Entertainment in time for holiday giving. He produced and co-starred in the acclaimed sci-fi comedy series Zhon: The Alien Interviews, a pioneer in longer-form narrative fiction streaming series. Eric played both Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday in nationally publicized media productions, Legends and Lies for FOX and in legendary director Alex Cox’s mocumentary feature film Tombstone Rashomon. Eric has produced or directed multimedia series, feature films, short films, audiobooks, audio dramas, TV and radio commercials, live concerts, music, and marketing videos. Eric also plays several characters in the Museum series (Mirandum, the Museum curator, the first character you’ll hear).
