The Bright Sessions Wraps Up While Birthing New Projects

Today marks the ending (and the beginning in some ways) of a very special and unexpected project. The Bright Sessions, an audio drama podcast started in 2015, released their season finale this morning. Created from aspiring actress, Lauren Shippen, the story follows the titular therapist Dr. Joan Bright as she meets and examines with her patients. Oh yeah, her patients are X-Men-esque mutants called atypicals who are often in the midst of learning about and attempting to control their newfound powers.

Though on the surface it’s a story of these atypicals learning about their powers mixed in with a clandestine and shady government agency, the story is more-so a complex exploration into relationships and people’s sense of identity. The podcast has been praised for its portrayal of mental health issues, treatment, and the diversity of their characters including several who identify as LGBTQ. Really, if you haven’t listened, feel free to stop reading and pop on episode one.

In 2015, Shippen was living in LA doing the “actor hustle” as she describes it. Persuaded to ditch the traditional gatekeepers and avoid the generic female roles out there, she started to develop what would later become The Bright Sessions. Shippen already had the character of Sam, an anxious time-traveler, in her head. She would later voice Sam herself. Shippen tells me, “I wrote 9 episodes and roped three friends into it. We enjoyed making the first season so much, I wrote some more and here we are.”

The rest of the characters, specifically Caleb the high school jock empath and Chloe the mind reader, were written specifically with their voice actors in mind, Briggon Snow and Anna Lore respectively. The characters’ backgrounds along with their abilities were shrewdly selected. Caleb, for instance, is a high school football player discovering both his sexuality and atypical abilities. Being an empath — someone who experiences others emotions — would be a near nightmare in that specific point in their life. Mind reading, however, is typically portrayed as a desirable superpower, though Chloe struggles with the ability and finds it difficult to build meaningful relationships. Describing how she developed the characters, Shippen explains, “It’s about finding those interesting contrasts and tailoring the characters to the actors in my life.”

Shippen doesn’t have the intense radio or journalist backgrounds you find in a lot of successful podcasters. She dabbled with radio in college, but wasn’t aggressively pursuing a career in it. Unsurprisingly, most of the technology, editing, and post-production was self taught. Asked how she was able to produce something without any quality issues a lot of first time podcasters face,  she laughed and said, “I watched a lot of YouTube tutorials.”

Though the core Bright Sessions wraps up today, it’s far from the end of the story for Shippen or the characters she created. Shippen is currently writing three young adult novels set in the same universe and The Bright Sessions is yet another example of a podcast getting a TV adaptation. There are also 9 bonus episodes coming out later this summer, each written and developed by a different person. Asked about handing the keys to different writers for the bonus episodes, Shippen is understandably both excited and nervous. “It’s been really weird seeing other people write my characters, but it’s been extremely rewarding.” To ease listeners into it, the first bonus episode is helmed by Julia Morizawa the voice of Dr. Bright herself. “If there’s anyone who I trust with Dr. Bright and the world itself, it’s Julia.”

Though the original story is ending, the characters and world Shippen created will continue to live elsewhere. Along with the future projects detailed above, Shippen and the team are also creating spin-off podcasts debuting in upcoming years.