Decoder Ring Theatre

The badlands of the city have long been a wilderness to which the faint of heart do not travel. Those condemned by circumstance to live within their borders step lively, watch their backs, and take nothing for granted. But now those unlucky citizens are disappearing at an alarming rate; sinking into the night without apparent cause. Can the Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel stem the tide, or is Toronto doomed to become a... City of the Dead?

There are all kind of luck in this world. Good luck, bad luck... the luck you make, the luck you were just born with... and then there is good old-fashioned dumb luck, and it's leading practitioner, Freddie "The Finger" Hawthorne. But when Freddie's luck crosses the line between dumb and just plain stupid, somebody's bound to answer with lead. And if everybody lives through it, it'll be Some Kinda Lucky!

Foiled but not vanquished, the villainous Nightshade and her crew of mercenaries have gone to ground, hiding while they rebuild and preparing to loose new terrors on the city in the name of their Nazi paymasters. Can Kit Baxter lead the fight as the Flying Squirrel? Will John Archer's grief and rage prevent him from wearing the mask of the Red Panda? The answers lie within... The Trojan Horse!

Matt Dawson was a smooth character, all right. At least half as smooth as he seemed to think he was. But why a lawyer from one of the city's top firms chose to darken the door of a certain his and hers detective agency was a whole other matter. But one thing was for certain; you come out to play in the noon-day sun, and you're gonna get burned, baby.

From the darkness of defeat and despair, the last, lingering embers of hope spring to life. A blaze of justice born of passion begins once again to flicker and finally to burst into a roaring flame. And Phoenix-like, a hero emerges... From the Ashes!

Our Summer of Slick comes to an end with a perplexing problem of personal peril! Someone is gunning for the big man in local public radio, which can only mean one thing: Someone has some time on his hands! How will our Great Gumshoe handle the Perils of Public Radio? 

Your standard-issue tough-taling, hard-as-nails private eye doesn't get to solve a lot of murders. Those tend to go to the cops, and even Metropolisville's Finest notice a little thing like unrequested help from their old pal Slick Bracer. But when the murder hasn't quite happened yet, and a big fat fee is one the table, just about anything is possible... including Slick taking... The Giant Nap!

Take one hard-boiled, poorly cliched private eye, add a mysterious missing artifact and stir in six or seven of history's most culturally insesitive accents since Hogan's Heroes went off the air and you have the recepie for mystery, mayhem and a sweeping apology from our legal department. Here for your dining and dancing pleasure.... the mystery of The Ruby Tooth!

He has always been a lone wolf... a solitary coyote... or at least an only puppy. But today, Slick Bracer, PI is getting himself a partner! Will double the dick mean double the trouble? Will the citizens of Metropolisville be safe at last? Or will the newest cast member have a life expectancy of a red-shirted extra on Star Trek? Would it give you a hint if we mentioned this is the Mystery of Some Murdered Guy?

Metropolisville's most manly man of mystery takes of a crazed dognapping ring, an even more crazed client, a police detective who is also... um... crazed and a secretary who is also at least slightly crazed. I sense a theme. A funky theme, with some horns and a lot of bass. Get your bad selves ready for The Case of the Kidnapped Canine!

Get ready for the Summer of Slick, as Decoder Ring Theatre proudly presents a full set of Erik Deckers' Slick Bracer, starring Peter Nicol as Slick! Action thrills! Mysterious chills! And the DRT ensemble having fun trying to bust up poor Peter in the middle of his lines. Good times! This week: one dead restaurateur and five or six desperately unlikely suspects somehow adds up to.... A Four Star Murder!

Which is more deadly, the battle you thought was lost, or the fight you thought you had won? In the chaos of war, only one thing is certain... There Will Be Rain Tonight!

For years now, the country has been haunted by an enemy as elusive as any ghost. The head of a network working to weaken our war effort and prepared to devestate our defences at a stroke when the opportunity presents itself for their Nazi masters to strike. He has been held in check by our heroes, but with their own network depleted and diminished, how much longer can they continue the fight? If the end is to come, it must come now - and it will take... All The King's Men!

There are some situations that you just can't prepare for. You can be the cleverest mystery man on the block, there will still be days that you just never saw coming. Those are the moments that cry out for a firey horse with the speed of lighht, a cloud of dust and a hearty... well, you know...

A newspaper is a powerful tool. The voice of the people, a beacon of truth in dark times and a reflexion of all that we would like to be as a city, a nation, a people. But if you happen to be the unseen hand behind Nazi fifth-column efforts, you just might get a little sick and tired of a certain crusading daily. And if you did, what choice would you have but to... Stop The Presses!

Let's see... the Nazis have decimated the Council of Mages in the Occult War and swarmed over half of Europe. They have squadrons of telepathically controlled dinosaurs and fantastic technology derived from dark magic. And their man inside Canada has run the country's masked heroes ragged trying to keep up. And it turns out that the only thing stopping things from getting a whole lot worse are a few... Small Wonders!

Through the mists of time, from an age almost forgotten, comes a lost blade once wielded by a man who held much of the civilized world under his power. Three thousand years later, a different tyrant has similar dreams. Can the Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel keep such a powerful talisman out of his hands? Can even a disciple of an old friend defend them from the... Sword of the Sun King?

They say that if a person is lucky at cards, it stands to follow that they must also be unlucky at love. But it doesn't take much research to prove that it's possible to be both. The stakes are in the story - see your two bickering heirs and raise you one missing will - and around this table The Sky's The Limit!

There are always more than one side to every story. And when you're dealing with a newspaper magnate, a missing heiress, a kidnapping with no ransom and an angry fishmonger, sometimes there are more sides than story. No simple matter for your average gumshoe, but just another day at the office for... Man's Best Friend.

"The one that got away" is a fine kind of tale for some. Fishermen, for example, seem to thrive on the subject. But in the detective business, where things seem to exist in a perpetually unfinished state, there are those cases that just won't stay in the drawer. The ones that never sat quite right. If only you had been a little stronger, a little smarter.... and sometimes they can weigh a man down, threaten to drag him under as they hang about his neck. It's sink or swim time, and who will win, the flatfoot or... The Albatross?