The Bright Sessions Wiki

Welcome to ***The Bright Sessions*** Wiki! The goal of this wiki is to help fans by collecting and organizing all the information they could possibly want and need about the series.

## **About The Bright Sessions**

***The Bright Sessions*** is a science fiction audio drama podcast that follows a group of therapy patients. But these are not your typical patients - each is an atypical who has a unique supernatural ability. The show documents their struggles and discoveries as well as the motivations of their mysterious therapist, Dr. Bright.

The show is created, written, and directed by Lauren Shippen, and premiered on November 1st, 2015. In April 2016, Mischa Stanton joined the team as a sound producer and technical expert (Episode 17 onwards). The show is four seasons long with a complete total of 56 episodes. The final episode of the series was released on June 13, 2018.

*Stay Strange.*

## **Cast and Characters**

* Julia Morizawa as Dr. Joan Bright, a therapist for the strange and unusual.
* Lauren Shippen as Sam Barnes, a time-traveler with extreme anxiety.
* Briggon Snow as Caleb Michaels, a high school jock with empathic abilities.
* Anna Lore as Chloe Turner, an artist with telepathic abilities.
* Charlie Ian as Damien, a troubled man who can implant his desires into other's minds.
* Ian McQuown as Agent Green, an agent of The AM who takes his job very seriously.
* Alex Gallner as Adam Hayes, a non-atypical who is in the same class as Caleb.
* Andrew Nowak as Mark Bryant, an adventurous photographer with atypical abilities.
* Alex Marshall-Brown as Director Wadsworth, an ambitious and competent woman who is one of the directors of The AM.
* Phillip Jordan as Frank Sawyer, a homeless, ex-marine suffering from PTSD.
* Alanna Fox as Rose Atkinson, a dream-walker who comes from a family of atypicals.
* Reyn Beeler as Charlie Decker, a security guard of one of The AM facilities.
* Elizabeth Laird as Sarah, Dr. Bright's receptionist.

## **Production**

### **Conception**

   The idea for The Bright Sessions was somewhat inspired by Welcome to Night Vale and BBC’s Cabin Pressure. Lauren Shippen was listening to these shows while stuck in LA traffic and fell in love with the idea of audio drama. While sitting in the aforementioned traffic, Shippen was talking out loud to herself (part of her writing process) as the character of Sam when she realized that Sam needed someone to talk to. The first thing that she thought of was a "therapist," and there the idea of The Bright Sessions came to be. The pilot episode was written in one sitting in June 2014 and shelved it for about a year. When she came back to it, Shippen had become more familiar with the audio drama landscape as a whole.
The Bright Sessions was not particularly influenced by any one psychological theory. Shippen had help from her sister, Elizabeth Laird—an actual psychologist—for how a therapist would talk or what methods they might use and did online research when necessary.

> Lauren Shippen, on the format of The Bright Sessions:
> *"I think the therapy format works especially well on radio for two reasons. One: it’s straightforward and easy to follow. It can be hard to pull off convincing action in an audio format, but it’s very easy to put together two people having a conversation. Two: there’s a voyeuristic element to it that I think is intriguing to people. Even though our patients are extraordinary, they are still dealing with very real, human problems. I think there’s a lot of entertainment to be mined out of that and a lot to relate to. And because it’s an audio recording and not a video, I think it gives the listener the feeling that they are really there, listening in."*
>
>

### **Casting**

> Lauren Shippen, on the casting of Julia Morizawa:
> *"Julia is a magical superhuman and The Bright Sessions would not be a tenth of what it is without her. That sounds like hyperbole; it isn’t. I’ve known Julia for about two years – we met in acting class at the BGB Studio in North Hollywood. That same studio is where I met Briggon Snow (Caleb) and Charlie Ian (Damien) — it’s a studio full of crazy talented people and I take as much advantage of that as possible. The moment I realized I didn’t want to play Dr. Bright myself (and yes, that was something I briefly flirted with), my mind immediately went to Julia."*
>
>

### **Writing**

Shippen has already written all the scripts for the first season before the whole cast sat down for the table read. She already had a clear idea of who these characters were and where she wanted the story to go. However, after hearing it out loud, with regard to the various interpretations of her cast members, the story shifted. By the production meeting for season 2, the cast also shared their plot ideas for the show. Recently, challenges in writing include finding a believable reason for the characters to have a recording of the conversation.

## **Additional Content and Adaptations**

### **TV Show**

On July 17, 2017, it was announced that *The Bright Sessions* is being adapted into a television show by Dark Horse Entertainment and Universal Cable Productions. Gabrielle G. Stanton (*Grey’s Anatomy, The Flash*), as well as Lauren Shippen are penning the adaptation.

### **Novels**

It was also announced that the series would be continued as a young adult book trilogy. The first book was released on September 24, 2019. The novel is titled *The Infinite Noise* and follows Caleb Michaels and Adam Hayes throughout the beginning of their relationship and the other events of the show's first few seasons.

The second novel is titled *A Neon Darkness* and was released on September 29, 2020. It follows mind manipulator Robert "Damien" Gorham in 2006, before the events of the series take place, as he moves to Los Angeles and befriends a group of atypicals who call themselves the unusuals.

The third book, *Some Faraway Place*, was released on September 28, 2021. The novel centered around dreamwalker Rose Atkinson and her love interest Emily Rodriguez.

### **Spin-Offs**

The first spin-off series, *The AM Archives*, follows The AM and its new directors after the events of *The Bright Sessions*. Its first episode was released in April of 2019 and the first season concluded in August of 2019. This series also featured a mini-series titled *Order & Chaos*, which followed The Order and different atypical organizations around the world. It is created by Atypical Artists and is available exclusively on Luminary.

The second spin-off series, *The College Tapes*, premiered on September 30, 2020 and ended on November 1, 2020. The episodes were all released in real time (in EST) along with the events in the show. The series followed Caleb Michaels and Adam Hayes who, after having broken up, are attempting to solve an atypical mystery together during their senior year of college.

## **Atypical Artists**

In 2019, Lauren Shippen founded the audio drama production company Atypical Artists with *Bright Sessions* co-star Briggon Snow and friend Jordan Cope. The name being a reference to the designation 'atypical' used for individuals in the *Bright Sessions* universe. Atypical Artists was the producer for both spin-offs, as well as several other shows.

Atypical Artists' first show outside of the *Bright Sessions* universe was *Arcs*, a DND 5e real-play podcast that began in 2019 and is currently on indefinite hiatus. The show features Cope as DM as well as Shippen, Snow, and Nathan Stanz (voice of Rostova in *The AM Archives*) as players.

In 2020, Atypical Artists produced *Greenhouse*, a Sapphic love story created by Lillian Holman. The series starred Alex Marshall-Brown (voice of Ellie Wadsworth in the TBS-universe) and Helen Highfield (voice of Helen in *The AM Archives*).

From December 2020 to January 2021, Atypical Artists was producing a dramatic musical podcast called *In Strange Woods*. The series featured notable appearances by Briggon Snow (Caleb Michaels), Lauren Shippen (TBS creator, Sam Barnes), and Kristian Bruun (Oliver Ritz).

## **Awards**

*The Bright Sessions* has been named one of the best podcasts of 2016 by iTunes, Wired , IndieWire , and Popular Science .

**The show has also won 7 Audio Verse awards in 2016, namely:**

* Best Audio Engineering of an Original, Ongoing, Short Form Production (Mischa Stanton)

* Best Writing of an Original, Short Form, Ongoing Production (Lauren Shippen)
* Best Original, Short Form, Small Cast, Ongoing, Dramatic Production
* Best New Original, Short Form, Small Cast, Ongoing Production
* Best Performance of an Actress in an Original Ensemble Role for a Short Form Production (Lauren Shippen as Sam)
* Best Performance of an Actress in an Original Leading Role for a Short Form Production (Julia Morizawa as Dr. Bright)
* Best Performance of an Actor in an Original Ensemble Role for a Short Form Production (Briggon Snow as Caleb)

**In 2017, the show won 2 Audio Verse Awards :**

* Best Writing for an Ongoing, Dramatic, Production for Lauren Shippen
* Best Actress in a Leading role for an Ongoing, Dramatic, Production for Julia Morizawa as Dr Joan Bright

**In 2018, for its final year of the main series, the show won 4 Audioverse Awards :**

* Best Audio Engineering of an Ongoing, Long-form, Dramatic Production for Mischa Stanton

* Best Original Composition for an Ongoing, Dramatic Production for Together Again, written by Evan Cunningham, Lauren Shippen and Mischa Stanton, sung by Andrew Nowak

* Best Performance of a Leading Role in an Ongoing, Dramatic Production for Julia Morizawa as Dr. Joan Bright
* Best Performance of a Supporting Role in an Ongoing, Dramatic Production for Briggon Snow as Caleb Michaels

**In 2019, *The AM Archives* won 8 Audioverse Awards:**

* Best Instrumental Composition in a New Production for The AM Archives Theme by Evan Cunningham
* Best Action Sound Design in a New Production for Brandon Grugle, Anna Rodriguez, and Mischa Stanton
* Best Environment Sound Design in a New Production for Brandon Grugle, Anna Rodriguez, and Mischa Stanton
* Best Writing of a New Audio Play Production for Octavia Bray, Meghan Fitzmartin, Caitlin Schneiderhan, and Lauren Shippen
* Best Voice Direction of a New Production for Lauren Shippen
* Best Performance of a Supporting Role in a New Audio Play Production for Andrew Nowak as Mark Bryant
* Best Performance of a Leading Role in a New Audio Play Production for Julia Morizawa as Dr. Joan Bright
* Best New Audio Play Production

## **References**

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Drama Sunday: The Bright Sessions, A Conversation with Lauren Shippen
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Girl Authority, Kneel Before Aud Episode 47 - Actor, Writer and Creator of THE BRIGHT SESSIONS, LAUREN SHIPPEN
3. ↑ Fictitious Podcast with Lauren Shippen, writer/creator of “The Bright Sessions” Audio Drama
4. ↑ 'Mind MGMT,' 'Flutter' Adaptations in the Works at UCP as Dark Horse Re-Ups Pact

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