Lauren Shippen

Lauren Shippen is an audio drama writer, director, and actor, who has been working in the medium for 10 years. She’s worked on dozens of shows - from her first independent podcast The Bright Sessions to podcasts for Marvel and Stranger Things; from elaborate mysteries like Passenger List to tiny microfiction narratives like Breaker Whiskey. Through her company Atypical Artists, she’s produced shows from other creators, and she’s always trying to find ways to keep audio drama the welcoming, accessible home for creatives that it’s always been to her. 

Her new thing TWO THOUSAND AND LATE is insanely good.

Tell me about TWO THOUSAND AND LATE in ten words or less.
Millennial frustration, demonic possession, unlearning nihilism, and pina coladas.

What was the spark that made you say “aha, that’s the idea, that’s TWO THOUSAND AND LATE!”
When coming up with new ideas, it’s always fun to take stories you know well, or particular tropes, and think “what’s one way I could change that”. For me, the classic chosen one story where a teenage girl is given great and terrible power is always fun, and the thought occurred “well, what if it wasn’t a teenage girl, but a fully grown woman who is not doing well in her life”. The story evolved a bit from that concept, but that was the original idea - what would a not-at-all-impressionable adult do with sudden supernatural powers?

When you first told me about this show, you used the word rage. Can you elaborate what kind of rage and how you identify with it?
I don’t think I’m alone in feeling a lot of rage at the people in power these days–whether that’s the government, or tech overlords, or billionaires, or your bad boss, there are so many people with so much control over our lives who keep making terrible decisions and seem to be doing so for cruelty and no other reason. That specific rage–over things that directly affect your life but over which you barely have any control–is very much at the heart of the show.

You also used the word hope. But it seems like a kind of nuanced hope. Not hope that everything is going to be OK, but that the world is something to love and maybe worth fighting for. How do you see hope playing out here?
That’s such a lovely way of putting it–it isn’t hope that everything is going to be okay, but hope that you can find the energy and find the people that will help you fight another day. And that fight isn’t going to be easy or straightforward, but there is so much worth fighting for. The hope in the show is very much gritty and hard-won and not always easy to maintain. It’s the hope that, even when the world feels overwhelmingly difficult, you’ll never lose your ability to care about making it better.

What made you want to tap into rage when usually you go for a much softer and optimistic tone? (This question is from Wil Williams!)
I’ve felt a lot of rage in my life. It’s usually simmering right beneath the surface - a dear friend once described it as a “tiny little alligator demon sometimes waiting to snap its jaws living patiently inside the body of a softhearted guitar playing bread baking stucky shipper”. It is something that really only close friends see, because most of the time I do try to be soft and optimistic! I always try to see the best in people and in the world, but I don’t always win that fight. This show is very much a release of a lot of rage I’ve felt throughout my life - after years of learning how to manage it and express it productively, it felt like it was an emotion I could finally express in my public art.

Can you think of any adjectives you’d use to describe the SOUND because it’s amazing.
It IS amazing - Jeffrey Nils Gardner has done a spectacular job. To me, it’s like the best kind of magazine collage; the kind of thing I would make when I was a teenager, cutting out photos and headlines and vibes from my music magazines and pasting them into a hodge-podge expression of angst.

Thanks, Lauren!