Backstage at the New BRASS Christmas Play!

Since October of this year we’ve been in rehearsal for “The Christmas Case: A Lady Brass Mystery.” The show opens in Portland’s Chapel Theatre on the day after Thanksgiving and runs through till December 21st with shows on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, with a Saturday matinee and one Wednesday performance on December 19th and none on the 20th). It’s been … Read More

BRASS Episode 25: Troubling Times

It is now 1886, and a new Prime Minister is in power. Arriving in Scotland, Lady Brass gets an update from the staff, while back in London, Ponder meets with a retired pugilist. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Depicting a Demagogue

Season Three of BRASS introduces a new character, Lord Trent, a dissolute aristocrat who’s catapulted to political prominence as part of the machinations of the Crime Minister. Before you protest that such a thing is too fantastical, let’s just say that despite current political events, there’s little new in the biographies and methods of demagogues. (Though yes, it’s perhaps true … Read More

BRASS Artist Profile: Anson Maddocks

For our current mini-series “The Devil in Whitechapel,” we wanted to create new promotional artwork more in keeping with its horror-themed atmosphere. So we commissioned an artist particularly well-known for his mastery of the sinister, the strange, and the macabre, Anson Maddocks. Maddocks created a huge number of original art for cards in the early days of Magic: the Gathering … Read More

BRASS: The Devil In Whitechapel Episode 1

Crooks and Nannies: Lord and Lady Brass pay a visit on a grieving widow, and find themselves drawn head-first into the mystery of a missing child. Cast List Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

BRASS Stacks 4: The Storyteller by Saki

For this episode, we return to the English master of the short sharp shock, Saki, and a delightfully mischievous narrative about the sort of tales children really enjoy, “The Storyteller.” Podcast (brass-stacks): Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

BRASS Stacks 2: Tobermory by Saki

For our second BRASS Stacks, we are featuring one of the greatest short story writers of the pre-War years, H.H. Munro, who wrote as Saki. This brilliant journalist-turned-short story writer was one of the great wits of the Edwardian age. Orphaned at age 2, Munro was raised by his grandmother and a household of puritanical aunts. (In both his comic … Read More

BRASS Episode 20: The End of the Affair

As news of the approaching catastrophe spreads, our friends seek escape, while high above the melee, Lord Whitestone attempts a difficult negotiation. Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS

Back in the Stacks

Even more than Victorian history, the world of BRASS is inspired by the fiction of the 19th and early 20th century. Literary creations like the Phantom of the Opera and Sherlock Holmes rub shoulders with Tesla and Oscar Wilde in our story, creating a mash-up of fiction, history and alternative history which samples from each. This period was the flowering … Read More

Is This The End of Our Heroes?

Season Two of BRASS, like Season One, ends on a cliffhanger, as despite the heroic efforts of the family and their allies Ponder Wright and Lord Whitestone, the Crime Minister’s plans are carried through to their cataclysmic conclusion. How could the Brass family possibly survive such destruction? One of the primary inspirations of BRASS were the classic radio adventure serials … Read More