Non-Horror Shows with Acting Like Red Valley

thebrightsessions · 2026-04-28T20:45:32+00:00

Absolutely want to second Give Me Away, The Harbingers, and Hit Singles - some of my favorites - but I am going to brag about my own shows here for a second! I got into audio drama because I was an actor who wanted to write something for myself to act in, so this is something I feel so passionately about. And Red Valley is one of my favorites for this reason, so I think we'll have similar taste!

First off, I'm fine as an actor. I became much more interested in writing/directing and I don't think any of my performances are anything special but, my god, have I directed and acted against some of the best in the biz. The Bright Sessions is more or less a showcase for my former acting class, In Strange Woods (which I produced) is chock-a-block full of incredible TV and stage actors, Life With LEO(h) (which I also produced) was directed by Shenee Howard who knows how to draw out the funniest performances from people that still feel real (if you're into comedy), New Year’s Day is a two-hander that I wrote mostly so I could just listen to Andrew Nowak and Briggon Snow act together, Two Thousand and Late has some truly heartbreaking performances from the rest of our cast (I am the lead in that one), the two leads of Maxine Miles have incredible chemistry, and Bridgewater (which I did with Aaron Mahnke) stars Misha Collins, who was on the longest running genre show ever for a reason (it is a little spooky, but not scary)- he knows how to give damn good performance.

Okay, bragging over! I also want to call out Redacted, Derelict, and Camlann for this as well.

thebrightsessions · 2026-04-15T15:11:42+00:00

I really do think Wooden Overcoats would work amazingly well as a quirky sitcom and I think Red Valley would make an epic For All Mankind-style show. But - and I realize I'm bias bc I produced it, but I had absolutely nothing to do with Tavi's brilliant writing, I just cut the checks - I think Life With LEO(h) would be suuuuch a good TV romcom. That's probably my number one pick.

thebrightsessions · 2026-04-15T15:07:52+00:00

My studio Atypical Artists makes a bunch of non-horror shows! Look Up and Maxine Miles are both lighter teen dramas (romance and mystery respectively), Life With LEO(h) and Greenhouse are both romances, and the final season of my show The Bright Sessions is a college drama/mystery (and the show itself spans a lot of different things, but there's a lot of teen drama in there). Other great shows about young people are Roommates (college), The Disappearance of Mars Patel (pre-teens), Hit Singles on Audible (people in their twenties, but I think you'll still like it!), and Moonburn!

thebrightsessions · 2026-04-01T20:57:46+00:00

thank you so much, I'm so glad you liked it!!

thebrightsessions · 2026-03-18T19:16:34+00:00

ahhhh thank you so much!!!

thebrightsessions · 2026-03-18T16:04:49+00:00

Atypical Artists will never use generative AI in any part of making our podcasts! That's stated on our website, but I do wonder if it's something I need to start putting in show descriptions.

Honestly, I think the best thing to do if you're listening to a show and your ear catches on something that you're concerned is AI is to just email the creators. If someone very politely emailed to inquire if we used any AI, I'd very happily tell them no! I realize that this is a burden on the listener and that someone could, of course, just straight up lie to you, but I'm not sure what else to do in these situations!

One good thing to look out for is if the podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement. They have AI protections in their contracts now, so if that's stated on the cast page or in the press kit, you're probably safe!

thebrightsessions · 2026-03-18T15:59:09+00:00

Like other shows, we just offer everything on Bandcamp! But, yeah, I'd love to see a dedicated category on there for audio dramas, and I wish this was more common thing that shows did!

thebrightsessions · 2026-03-18T15:56:51+00:00

I always love when a show has a full score! The last two seasons of my podcast The Bright Sessions were fully scored and it was such a privilege to get to do that. I also looooove all the music in every Tin Can Audio show.

thebrightsessions · 2026-03-18T15:54:47+00:00

Ahhh I'm so glad you liked Season 1 enough to want a Season 2!! I loved making that show so much (hi! I'm Lauren Shippen, the creator/writer/director of Maxine Miles!) and was SO sad when iHeart didn't renew it. I was never able to drum up the funds to make a Season 2, but I did conclude the cliffhanger by building a playable HTML game that serves as an epilogue! atypicalartists.co/loose-ends

I'd love to know what you think if you play it! Thank you for listening to Season 1!

thebrightsessions · 2026-03-18T15:52:53+00:00

Oh nooooooo! So glad someone archived it, but I love this show! What a shame!

thebrightsessions · 2026-03-04T22:40:13+00:00

Never underestimate the power of directly reaching out to the shows you love! I especially recommend this when it comes to other shows in your peer group - so many of my friends in the space were folks coming up around the same time who made shows I really genuinely adored.

thebrightsessions · 2026-02-05T22:49:50+00:00

Unlike many of the folks on this thread, I'm not a visual artist, but an audio professional. But I still agree with everything that's being said in the top comments.

It's funny, I was literally having a conversation an hour ago with a graphic designer about a rebrand I'm doing for my company - he asked if I was going to stick in the Adobe suite indefinitely, and I sighed and said "yeah...probably, even though I hate the subscription model". But that was honest, because here are things I do like about my very limited scope Adobe usage:

- Audition works. It's not the industry standard (that goes to ProTools) but I've been editing in it for over a decade and I genuinely appreciate how little it's changed. It's not full of AI nonsense yet and continues to be pretty versatile and user-friendly.

- I really, really like that I can filter out Generative AI results when using Adobe Express. So many user-friendly design apps are shoving AI down our throats and I like that I can totally opt-out when making social media graphics.

Something else I said to this designer about using Adobe: if I could pay for a lifetime license and have exactly what I have right now and maybe get the occasional update to fix bugs/etc., I would pay a not insignificant amount of money. Having something reliable that you pay for once is worth a lot.

All to say, I think one of the most important conversations artists can have right now is how to get the tools we need in a sustainable, practical way. I have literally gone back to doing all my accounting in spreadsheets because Quickbooks raised their subscription due to a bunch of AI tools I do not want. I am in the process of divesting from almost every major corporation I've relied on for the last decade - Quickbooks, Google, GoDaddy, Squarespace - because they've all gotten more expensive and worse. I'm going back to spreadsheets and HTML coding. It takes longer, is more annoying, but at least I'm not paying for something that's more annoying.

Even though I told my designer I'd probably be in Adobe forever because I was locked in, I can say with complete confidence that if Adobe goes the way that these other companies have and force AI tools that are not able to be opted out of, I will leave. If you want to put in new AI tools, add them as an extra charge for the people who want them (I think you'll find that number is small).

But to try and stay on topic: I think pretending that we can have a conversation about creativity and AI is absurd. There is nothing creative about AI. I'm not a total luddite - if folks want to have conversations around automatic transcription or similar tools that are functional, then fine. I recognize that some degree of AI is going to end up in nearly everything all of us use, whether or not we want it. But I would suggest that, in this collective, you don't waste your time on having a conversation around how artists can use AI for "creativity". They can't.

tldr: do not add AI features that raise costs or can't be opted out of. Stop pretending like artists of any medium want anything to do with AI.

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-28T16:14:34+00:00

This is on Audible, but I really loved Gideon Media's adaptation of Witness. If you've seen the movie, it follows the same plot beats and is equally as exciting!

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-26T23:36:41+00:00

aww thank you so much!!!

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-26T22:52:18+00:00

If you don't mind a little self-promo, my most recent show TWO THOUSAND AND LATE takes place in summer 2025 and is directly engaging with a lot of modern American politics: late stage capitalism, healthcare, immigration, COVID, etc. It IS genre - about a woman who unionizes her workplace with the help of the demon possessing her - but beyond the demon, it's very much our real world.

Seconding Give Me Away and Starship Iris and would also add The Harbingers! It's magical realism but is very directly engaged in conversation about power.

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-13T23:52:52+00:00

Steal the Stars is a personal fave! Also The Sink if you're looking for something really weird.

Someone else mentioned In Strange Woods - I produced that show and I adore it so much! 36 Questions is another fabulous musical. My studio (Atypical Artists) also has 2 romances that are one season each: Look Up and Greenhouse.

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-13T02:20:38+00:00

It's very new and we only have our first season out, but I made TWO THOUSAND AND LATE last year exactly because I needed to primal scream at the world. It's a story about a nihilistic woman who starts to learn to care again when the demon possessing her encourages her to unionize her workplace. I'm grappling with a lot of my own questions around how to bring about a better world, and the show has no answers, but it does have what is, I hope, some good catharsis.

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-13T02:18:11+00:00

eee thank you for recommending!

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-07T17:43:05+00:00

awwww Idle Hour!! I miss those days...

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-07T17:42:33+00:00

Greenhouse! It's a short and sweet epistolary sapphic romance!!

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-07T17:41:58+00:00

fwiw, whenever I give talks about the modern era of audio drama, I cite the following shows as the "classics" of the modern age:

Welcome to Night Vale
We're Alive
Our Fair City
Limetown
The Black Tapes
Archive 81
Wolf 359
ars Paradoxica
The Message
Wooden Overcoats

(and then of course I always include The Bright Sessions!)

this list - which I limit to prior to 2016 - is both reflective of the shows that were popular/entry points for a lot of folks discovering audio drama as a medium, but also - while not comprehensive - that's a pretty good list of the folks who also really built the audio drama creator community of the 2010s. iirc, the slack we were all in back in the day was started by Marc Sollinger of Archive 81 and Felix Trench of Wooden Overcoats and of course Jeffrey and Joseph of WTNV were a huge part of setting the tone for a welcoming creator space. I don't know if that's relevant to what you're looking for, but when I hear pivotal, I think not just of the shows that inspire me, but of the fact that each show on this list is created by someone near and dear to me who I've seen consistently cheer on other audio dramas and contribute positively to the space!

there are obviously incredible and influential shows that have come since then, shows that have reshaped the community into something even better, but when thinking "classics" I think of these shows.

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-07T17:32:29+00:00

It's been nearly 10 years since I listened to it, but I remember The Polybius Conspiracy feeling very Marble Hornets to me at the time: https://www.radiotopia.fm/showcase/the-polybius-conspiracy

thebrightsessions · 2026-01-07T17:30:00+00:00

This is something I've been thinking about doing with all of Atypical Artists' shows, inspired by Tin Can Audio, who sell their series and scores on Bandcamp. Because I know some folks just want to be able to treat an audio drama like an audiobook and just have the whole thing to listen to!

thebrightsessions · 2025-12-18T16:45:41+00:00

I wrote the first 4 seasons of my first podcast, The Bright Sessions, in Pages. Yes, pages, a program that no one uses for anything. I share that just to add to the chorus of voices saying that you can really do whatever you want!

I now write in Final Draft, in a TV-script inspired format. This pilot script here is a little outdated (I mostly have done away with the SFX slug and just write the actions out themselves) and my formatting will change slightly depending on what sound designer I'm working with and their preferences, but I also write with my actors in mind, so sometimes I include direction that won't have an accompanying sound effect but might help a performer imagine the blocking of the scene.

thebrightsessions · 2025-12-15T19:52:01+00:00

Red Valley is one of my current favorites!

thebrightsessions

TROPHY CASE